After spending the past decade at Magellan, one of the largest national behavioral health care companies, Barbara Leadholm comes back to the Department of Mental Health in Massachusetts to take over the reins.
She was assistant commissioner for policy and planning from 1990 to 1993 and then Metro South Area director until 1996. During that time, she published three articles discussing the model she advocated for community-based mental health care: PRISM — Psychiatric Rehabilitation Integrated Service Model.
I couldn’t find any further mention of this model in the literature, so I wonder how successfully it’s been adopted in other mental health systems throughout the country. Sometimes good models just don’t get much traction because people are reluctant to change their existing efforts. And even when they do, they may not publish any research about their change.
The most interesting aspect of Leadholm’s appointment, however, is the fact that she has worked on the other side of the aisle for the past decade — the largest company of its kind managing the mental health services for 60 million Americans. This is the same company, four years ago, that underwent a restructuring (ala a bankruptcy filing) that eliminated half its debt overnight.
It should be interesting to see what knowledge and experience Leadholm will bring to the position from Magellan. There’s a lot of good that can be learned from working within such a large company, and hopefully some of that will translate into helping the good people of Massachusetts with their mental health care.
Source: Bigby names new DMH commissioner via Boston.com
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 31 Jul 2007
