Earlier today, UCHealth announced a significant investment that will bolster behavioral health care for patients throughout our state. With an infusion of $100 million and an additional $25 million in matching funds, UCHealth will ensure that behavioral health therapists and psychiatrists are an integral part of the patient care experience.  By building out its intensive outpatient, preventive and telehealth services, the health system will be able to better serve more individuals in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain region and beyond.

 

This forward-looking investment by UCHealth complements the efforts of CU Anschutz and Children’s Colorado to address mental health needs. Last fall, Children’s Colorado teamed with our Department of Psychiatry to launch Partners for Children’s Mental Health (PCMH), a statewide network of individuals, organizations and agencies committed to helping kids get the right mental health, at the right time, within their own community.

 

Taken in combination with the efforts of so many units of the university – including the Department of Psychiatry, the National Mental Health Innovation Center, the Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Depression Center​ – we are making progress toward reducing the harmful stigma that too-often keeps those in need of quality mental health care from seeking it.

 

Our faculty have the expertise and resources to make a transformative impact on people’s lives. Together with our clinical partners, we will accelerate the pace of change in behavioral health care, and bring high-quality, integrated care to more of the millions of patients cared for each year. I hope you’ll join me in celebrating this great news.

 

Don Elliman
Chancellor