Boosting behavioral health services with innovative partnerships

In this episode of the EMS One-Stop podcast, host Rob Lawrence sits down with Fayetteville, North Carolina’s Cumberland County EMS Chief David Grovdahl and Behavioral Health Community Paramedic Tara Tucker to discuss the Cape Fear Valley Mobile Integrated Health Behavioral Health Community Paramedicine programs. The Cape Fear MIH Team is composed of four community paramedics, one social worker and a peer support specialist. The team focusses in particular on overdoses/request for substance use treatment, suicide related calls – ideation/attempts as well as youth calls related to mental health and substance use, and also EMS referrals and associated case management. Fayetteville is home to Fort Liberty and Pope Army Air Base, and is the sixth most populous city in North Carolina with a high number of uninsured and underinsured patients. Fifteen percent of Cumberland County’s population is military-affiliated and it is the third busiest EMS system in North Carolina. Cumberland’s affiliated ED, CFVMC Emergency Department, had 90,595 visits in 2021 for adults, and 30% of those (27,300) were for behavioral-health related issues, creating the need for a Behavioral Health service line employing community paramedics. In addition to discussing their mobile integrated healthcare system, Grovdahl also shares about the North Carlina whole blood programs and their progress.