CGI selected to modernize Electronic Medical Record system for the New York State Office of Mental Health

Child abuse down but neglect is up, report finds; parents biggest threat  

Poverty Rate Is Up in New York City, and Income Gap Is Wide, Census Data Show

Extreme Binge Drinking Not Uncommon in High School

High in cars: More high school seniors hit the road after smoking pot 

Report: New Hope For Prevention Of Dating Violence Among Middle School Students    

Nassau Announces Kick-off of Hunger Action Month 

Schumer, others call for prescription drug buyback 

Times Square Shooting: Experts say police need better training to deal with the mentally ill  

Health Home Biweekly Implementation Update Webinar,Session #24 - Role of SPOA in Health Homes 

September 25  1-2:30

Link 

Webinar:

Webinar:

Relational-Motivational Approach in the Evaluation and Treatment of Eating Disorders

In-Person Presentation: 

Understanding Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD): An Overview offered by NYS OPWDD

October 8th   9-12

Click HERE for locations and to register (by Oct. 5th)

Webinar: 

An Intense Discussion about Measuring Outcomes in Behavioral Health Care: Why We Need Tehm, How to Measure and What to Measure

October 10th Noon- 1

Register

In-Person Presentation:

A Conversation AboutImproving Outcomes in Treatment for Co-Occurring Substance Use and Mental Health Disorders

October 18th   12-1:30

NYSHealth Board Room

1385 Broadway, 23rd Floor (corner of 38th Street)  NY, NY 10018

RSVP by Oct. 4th

events@nyshealth.org  

 

Start Discussing Health Information Technology's Role in Behavioral Health

Bring your health information technology (HIT) questions, comments, and issues to the new SAMHSA HIT Forum. The new forum is intended to facilitate the exchange of ideas, suggestions, and personal experiences dealing with HIT for substance abuse treatment providers, mental health providers, software publishers, state agencies, consumers, families, and others involved in the field.

The topics likely to be covered include:

• Electronic health records systems
• Health information exchanges
• 42CFR2 requirements*
• Privacy
• Meaningful use criteria
• Experiences dealing with specific hardware and software
• Technology-assisted care
• Consumer self-management approaches
• Requests seeking advice from other stakeholders.

The views expressed on this forum will be solely those of their authors, not those of SAMHSA. 

Visit the Health Information Technology Forum

 

SAMHSA's New Publications 

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Opioid Overdose Prevention Toolkit Equips communities and local governments with material to develop policies and practices to help prevent opioid-related overdoses and deaths. Addresses issues for first responders, treatment providers, and those recovering from opioid overdose.

Health Insurance Marketplace:  If you're a professional learning about the Marketplace and helping people apply, get the latest resources here.

 

NY State of Health

The state estimates that more than 1 million New Yorkers, will buy insurance coverage through the exchange. Most people, who get health insurance through their employers, will not use it.  Read 

When he was 44, Ben Achord recently recalled, he was "the picture of success." Married with three kids, he was a manager at a Charlotte, N.C., manufacturing company and owned a handsome four-bedroom house.

What he didn't know was he was suffering from schizoaffective disorder, a serious mental illness that can cause severe depression, delusions and hallucinations. Unaware of his condition, he self-medicated with alcohol, and before his 45th birthday he had lost everything-his family, his job and his house. He lived on the streets, twice attempted suicide and spent several months in a mental hospital in Georgia.

Twenty-five years later, Achord is helping others with mental illness as a "certified peer specialist" licensed by the state of Georgia. Armed with non-clinical training from the state, Achord helps people with mental illness stay on their medications, find jobs and housing and build social support networks.

Peer programs such as Georgia's could become especially important once the Affordable Care Act takes effect early next year. The federal health law will require Medicaid and all other health plans to cover mental health services on par with insurance coverage of physical illnesses. It also will add an estimated 8 million people to the Medicaid rolls in the first year, many of whom will have untreated mental illnesses. Another 7 million people are expected to get federal tax subsidies to purchase health insurance, many for the first time. Read more.  

New Report Finds That Effects Of Child Abuse And Neglect, If Untreated, Can Last A Lifetime 

 
In the first major study of child abuse and neglect in 20 years, researchers with the National Academy of Sciences reported that the damaging consequences of abuse can not only reshape a child's brain but also last a lifetime. Untreated, the effects of child abuse and neglect, the researchers found, can profoundly influence victims' physical and mental health, their ability to control emotions and impulses, their achievement in school, and the relationships they form as children and as adults. Read more.  

Correctional health is both a public health and a public safety issue. Fiscal pressures, litigation, and judicial oversight are pushing states, counties and municipalities to look for alternatives that better meet the health needs of incarcerated populations. A new report reviews what is known and what experts point to as the best opportunities to improve the health of justice-involved populations.

What Is The Role Of Jails In Treating The Mentally Ill?
The United States incarcerates hundreds of thousands of inmates suffering from mental illness, and jails and prisons are struggling to provide for inmates with severe mental health needs. Los Angeles County is even exploring building a new jail specifically to house and provide treatment for mentally ill inmates. The proposal is estimated to cost more than $1 billion. L.A. County is not unique. In fact, it is far from it. Experts say good numbers are hard to come by, but one estimate calculates there are about 2.1 million annual bookings of persons with serious mental illnesses into jails. That number swells when you count state and federal prisons. Read more.

A Court for Juveniles in NY

NYT Editorial:  Teenagers prosecuted in adult courts or who do time in adult jails fare worse in life and can go on to commit more violent crimes than those who are handled by the juvenile justice system. Neuroscience research has found that these young offenders don't weigh risks the way adults do, making them prone to rash judgments that can land them in trouble with the law.  Read.  

The FBI's definition of mass murder is the slaying of four or more people. There have been at least 17 such tragedies already this year where the victims were gunned down, but shootings related to drug or gang violence often get less attention than those perpetrated by a crazed gunman.

HuffPost combed through a variety of news sources, including Reddit's community-generated database of mass shootings, and came up with this graphic, which may be incomplete. Killing sprees that occurred in more than one location were counted, but mass shootings that unfolded over more than one day, such as the string of homicides committed by ex-cop Christopher Dorner in Los Angeles, were not.

This is just one small and somewhat arbitrary measure of gun violence, but it shows that mass shootings have become too common for each to be treated as a national event. Guns have killed about 24,580 Americans since Newtown, according to Slate's estimate based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read more.   

The High, Hidden Cost of Gun Violence
As a health services researcher concerned with issues of the cost of care and access to services by the underserved, the author became intrigued with learning about the health costs of gun violence for the victims themselves and taxpayers. Howell found that there have been few studies of this issue, so he and his colleagues sought to remedy that. A new issue brief, The Hospital Costs of Gun Violence, is the result of a new Urban Institute study on the actual financial price we pay for gun violence. Read more.