The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Meridian Behavioral Services Inc., a private nonprofit in Sylva, signed an affiliation agreement May 1, 2015. John Gilmore, MD, Thad and Alice Eure Professor, vice chair of Research and Scientific Affairs, director and medical director of the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health in the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine, and Thava Mahadevan, MS, director of operations at the Center, will head this initiative. The Center will provide consultation for program development, training, and assistance with quality improvement and outcomes monitoring.
Meridian has been providing a comprehensive array of adult and child mental health and substance abuse services in the western counties of North Carolina since 2003, when the organization was formally established as a private, nonprofit “spin-off” of the newly formed local management entity, Smoky Mountain Center (SMC). Meridian provides both outpatient and community-based services in Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Transylvania counties and community-based services in Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Swain and Buncombe counties and is well-known for its recovery programs.
The UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health was created in 2009 with a grant from The Duke Endowment and serves individuals from 34 counties (youth and adult) with serious mental illness at clinics in Orange, Chatham and Wake counties. The Center also serves individuals in the community 24/7 through its Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams in Orange, Chatham and Wake counties and provides technical assistance to psychiatrists and other mental health professionals around the state.
“Our work with Meridian directly supports our mission to improve the lives of North Carolinians with mental illness by providing quality treatment and recovery-based programs throughout the state,” says Gilmore.
“We will support Meridian’s efforts to improve care and outcomes, and we will learn a lot about providing good care in a challenging rural setting.”
Gilmore says lessons learned there will also be instructive for the Center’s efforts to help improve care in other rural settings in North Carolina.
Meridian and Center leaders expect to collaborate on integrated care, medical home development, supported employment, supportive housing, assertive community treatment, critical time intervention and other programs, and will share collected outcomes data for research. Meridian psychiatrists and clinicians will become adjunct faculty in the UNC School of Medicine.
“By entering into a formal affiliation with UNC, Meridian will forge a relationship with the University’s Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health, which has garnered state-wide recognition for its innovative programs and initiatives,” says Joe Ferrara, CEO at Meridian. “Our respective organizations are committed to providing high quality, evidence-based, recovery focused treatment and support services to individuals with serious mental health and substance abuse challenges.”
“This strategic partnership will sponsor a level of clinical and programmatic collaboration that hasn’t existed in rural Western North Carolina,” Ferrara continues. “It will be a rare opportunity for those who live in a remote and rural area of the state to have local access to behavioral health services fortified by this unique relationship.”
“We’re excited about this partnership and the benefits it will have for the people of western North Carolina,” says Brian Ingraham, CEO, Smoky Mountain LME/MCO “The kinds of services and initiatives that the Center and Meridian Behavioral Health plan to enhance or develop represent the future of behavioral healthcare and will improve our understanding of the most effective ways to treat mental illness and substance use disorders.”