Project Overview

  • MHM SERVICE AREA
  • SÍ TEXAS SERVICE AREA

Project Overview

Mental illness and chronic illness are frequent companions, but the current systems of care in the U.S. don’t treat mental and physical illness together. Integrated Behavioral Health is an emerging model that could change this gap in care. Methodist Healthcare Ministries wanted to know if IBH would be effective in clinics serving low-income, uninsured patients in primarily Hispanic communities in South Texas, and created a project and a unique funding structure to find out.

0 Comparison Group 0 Evaluation Group 0 Non-evaluation Group
0 Unduplicated Patients Served

The Participants

People and organizations that took part in the Sí Texas project are a diverse representation of the South Texas landscape.

Aside from patients, clients and health care consumers, each of these organizations – clinics, funders, academic institutions – built entire teams to support the IBH work of the Si Texas study: Administrators, providers, clinicians, community health workers, exercise and nutrition experts, care navigators, data management experts, project and program managers, evaluators, accounting and compliance specialists.

The Work

Hope Family Health Center
Mercy Ministries of Laredo
Nuestra Clinica del Valle
Rural Economic Assistance League (REAL)
Texas A&M International University
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Tropical Texas Behavioral Health

The Research

PROJECT RESEARCH

A creative evaluation approach built a learning framework that supports evaluation capacity for long-term grantee sustainability, and measures impact on the people Methodist Healthcare Ministries serves.

CAPACITY BUILDING

Methodist Healthcare Ministries recognized that Sí Texas needed subgrantees to successfully manage the organizational and culture change that came along with implementing new health care delivery models. A formal capacity-building program was launched to help subgrantees enhance core leadership, management, and technical capacities.

Triumphant Transformation

Transforming health care delivery is brave work – change requires disruption. It’s only possible in places where leadership, commitment and shared vision thrive.

Sí Texas represented a lot of change and the challenges that arise. Success ties back to the foundation that was laid from the start—commitment, partnerships, learning, and a common mission: To improve whole-person wellness—mind, body and spirit—of the least served.

Working together, committed people built evidence that Integrated Behavioral Health works when caring for low-income, uninsured people in South Texas, and learned how to sustain and grow IBH practices, to continue providing primary and mental health care together.

To CNCS, all the co-investors, the subgrantees, program partners, and patients, clients and healthcare consumers… to the communities that made Si Texas possible: Methodist Healthcare Ministries is grateful for the opportunity to come alongside and say,

Yes, we can:

  • Draw new sources of funding into philanthropic deserts
  • Improve mental and physical health at the same time
  • Change the way care is delivered in our communities

Together, we can say, Sí Texas!

Triumphant Transformation

Resources & References

Sí Texas Project: Research Summary
PDF Download
Sí Texas Portfolio Final Evaluation Report
PDF Download
Hope Family Health Center
PDF Download
Mercy Ministries of Laredo
PDF Download
Nuestra Clinica del Valle
PDF Download
Tropical Texas Behavioral Health
PDF Download
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
PDF Download
Texas A&M International University
PDF Download
UT Health
PDF Download
REAL, Inc.
PDF Download
SAMHSA-HRSA Center for Integrated Health Solutions
Link to External Site
Best Practices in Integrated Behavioral Health
Link to External Site