An Integrated Primary Care Approach to Help Children B-HIP!

This article outlines a collaborative health care initiative entitled “Be Happy, Involved, and Positive (B-HIP)”—a grant-funded program through the Illinois Children’s Healthcare Foundation. The B-HIP program was developed in January 2009 at the Rush-Copley Medical Center to address the previously undiagnosed mental health care needs for pediatric patients in a primary care setting. This article seeks to illustrate how, through collaborative care, efforts are being made to assess and address the mental health care needs for pediatric patients, and is furthermore an attempt to share information about implementing a pediatric mental health screening for best practices of the proposed prevention program, “B-HIP.” The investigators applied the Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC) as a standard of care for identified pediatric patients. Along with anecdotal data of the B-HIP program, an outline of the theory, design, and implementation behind the program’s inception is presented.