Duke Endowment

LEVINE CHILDREN’S LEADS NEW APPROACHES TO MENTAL HEALTH INTERVENTIONS AND CARE

With support from The Duke Endowment, Atrium Health Levine Children’s is paving the way for new methods of psychological care and intervention among patients receiving treatment for acute or chronic medical conditions. Thanks to a recent $557,000 grant from The Duke Endowment, Atrium Health Levine Children’s has just launched a pilot program integrating evidence-based psychological assessment into clinical visits for medically fragile patients.

While Levine Children's employs specially trained pediatric psychologists to treat patients impacted by a small subset of medical conditions, such as neuro-oncology, funding from The Duke Endowment will allow clinicians to test a much broader integration across all pediatric specialty clinics. Ultimately, this will allow Levine Children’s to better identify and address patients’ mental health needs quickly and avoid reactive, crisis-mode interventions down the line. A crucial aspect of the virtual intervention program is to reach a wider population than patients previously assessed in healthcare facilities alone.

Complementing this study is an additional program at Levine Children's that recently received $750,000 from The Duke Endowment. This program seeks to proactively identify children and adolescents who need behavioral health services, connect them to care, and help maintain the continuum of care through partnerships with school-based programs and psychiatric medical providers. These efforts to improve coordination of care come at a critical time, as children and teens face multiple challenges associated with the ongoing pandemic.

The new program is one of Atrium Health Behavioral Health's numerous community-supported efforts to utilize virtual care and referral services to improve assessment and treatment of mental health needs. Programs such as Virtual Patient Navigation, Zero Suicide Pathway, Behavioral Health Integration, and Virtual Psychiatric Transition Care, continue to benefit from benefactors such as The Duke Endowment.

GRANT BOLSTERS SOCIAL IMPACT IN YORK COUNTY

Healthy People, Healthy Carolinas, an initiative and grant program launched by The Duke Endowment in 2015, was developed to address the needs of 20 communities in North and South Carolina, including residents of York County. The initiative supports the work of community coalitions that bring together leaders from multiple sectors – including healthcare systems, local nonprofits, educational institutions, and others – to address social determinants of health. In recent years, Atrium Health has partnered with Impact York County and recently received a second round of funding from The Duke Endowment’s Healthy People, Healthy Carolinas grant program. With the most recent $450,000 grant, Atrium Health, in partnership with Impact York County, continues to improve health equity and community wellness in vulnerable and underserved communities.

Aligning with Atrium Health’s community social impact strategy, Impact York County will leverage the support of The Duke Endowment to implement new evidence-based health literacy programs related to chronic disease prevention; partner with community organizations to improve access to healthy foods; reach underserved minority communities through mobile COVID-19 vaccination clinics; and lead policy discussions linking health and food systems.