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May 2026
Advances in Mental Health
Doug Fernald, MA, Senior Instructor of Family Medicine at CU Anschutz is first author of an article published in the Advances in Mental Health journal titled, “Interprofessional Teamwork in a Primary Care Integrated Behavioural Health Intervention: Insights from a Team Effectiveness Framework Analysis.”
From the article:
“When integrating behavioural health providers into primary care practices, team performance is one aspect that has not been reported on extensively, though it may be beneficial. High-functioning teams have known benefits to client outcomes and to practice teams themselves… Extensively reviewed team literature and proposed a consolidated set of core components in the ‘Big Five’: team leadership, mutual performance monitoring, backup behaviour, adaptability, and team orientation – plus supporting mechanisms that contribute to effective teamwork. Enhancing interdependence – communication, trust, coordination, understanding, responding, and adapting – enhances team function. While there is consistency across teamwork literature on key components of effective teamwork, empirical details about how these components look and work in integrated behavioural health teams seem to be missing. Using the ‘Big Five’ components as an analytical framework and as a guide for empirical data collection from team member interviews, we aimed to: describe interprofessional teamwork specifics; illustrate how the framework components can look in integrated behavioural health teams; and identify opportunities to enhance teamwork for high-quality integrated behavioural healthcare (IBH) and primary care.”
Other DFM contributors include (individuals listed alphabetically): Shandra Brown Levey, PhD; Lakshmi Karra, MD; Jodi Summers Holtrop, PhD, MCHES; Lauren Tolle, PhD; and Jill VanWyk, MD
Read more of this article.
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