Two Virginia organizations partnering to transform integrated care delivery:
Colonial Behavioral Health (CBH): A community service board offering outpatient mental health and addiction treatment, inpatient services, case management, and community access points. Served 3,500+ patients in 2024.
Southeastern Virginia Health Services (SEVHS): A federally qualified health center providing primary care, women’s health, behavioral health, and wraparound services. Served 19,000+ patients in 2024.
Virginia faces a critical provider shortage: the Commonwealth has one primary care physician per 1,340 residents and one mental health provider per 380 people. About 1 in 7 Virginians report poor mental health for half the month or more, and adults reported their physical health was not good on 3.8 of the previous 30 days, just below the US average.
When CBH received 14 acres of land to build a new facility, they recognized an opportunity to address these issues through truly integrated care. They partnered with SEVHS to co-create a shared facility, but needed expert guidance to help them create genuine integration rather than simple co-location.
Develop a highly integrated outpatient primary care and behavioral health practice combining CBH’s behavioral health expertise with SEVHS’s primary care capabilities in one new facility.
PCDC was engaged to provide comprehensive facilitation and technical assistance across four strategic areas:
Planning and Assessment: Educational sessions and strength-based infrastructure assessments to establish a foundation for integration.
Care Model Development: Integrated care training, facility layout strategy, and workflow development that breaks down traditional silos.
Business Operations: Financial sustainability analysis and quality improvement skill building to ensure long-term viability.
Implementation Support: Program piloting to test and refine the model before full-scale launch.
From a sample of 45 participating staff:
Beyond training metrics, PCDC:
The training and technical assistance they received from PCDC led to a dramatic shift in how the two organizations’ teams thought about their collaboration. For example, the separate waiting rooms they initially envisioned represented their mental model: two organizations sharing space. The shared waiting room they ultimately designed represents integration: one team serving everyone.
“PCDC is always keeping everyone’s eye on the prize, bringing us back to the strategic level,” says Kyra Cook, Director of Special Projects at Colonial Behavioral Health. “They’re thinking big picture, helping us get beyond our scrappy non-profit mentality to make a braided, integrated process so we have a culturally and financially sustainable model.”