Telecare has partnered with Kaiser Permanente for more than 20 years, providing acute inpatient and intensive community-based mental health services.

Most recently, Telecare has partnered with Kaiser to dramatically expand the Intensive Community Treatment (ICT) model in seven locations across Northern California. Read more these programs here. Learn more about the ICT model below.

Intensive Community Treatment: Going Above and Beyond

What is so unique about the ICT model of care is that staff not only support Kaiser members out in the community — but that they able to form powerful connections and relationships with people who have been very hard for Kaiser to engage in traditional office-based services.

How do they do this? With patience, creativity, compassion, and perseverance.

ICT in Action: Connection, Investment, Support, and Hope

An example of this comes from our Kaiser ICT Pleasant Hill, a satellite service of the Sacramento ICT program. Amina, a Telecare staff member, goes above beyond to help people get the care they need and connect with the resources available to them within Kaiser.

“Amina is assigned to at least THREE of my high-risk SPMI patients that are NOT taking phone calls,” said one of our partners from Kaiser Permanente. “She sees them in person and does SO much to get them INVESTED in their own treatment — people who believe they have nothing, have lost hope, have no cognitive ability to organize an appointment due to severe psychiatric instability. Amina’s skillset gets them motivated and interested.

One person was scheduled to see an MD for medication but did not show. He took about three of my ten phone calls, but was floridly psychotic at those times, and truncated our calls within seconds. Amina went to meet him in the city he had fled to, BROUGHT him medication, inspired him to TAKE it, gave him hope and important psychoeducation. She helped him to become compliant, thus stable, thus able to think clearly about his clinical needs. He trusts her enough to accept help for food and an appointment with me. Today, he took a FULL call from me AND made a one-hour intake appointment for our treatment program.”

Through the ICT model, Amina delivered personalized care to each individual, creating trust through her interactions, and fostering hope where it’s most needed.

About Intensive Community Treatment (ICT), Kaiser Permanente, and Telecare

In 2017, Kaiser Permanente and Telecare launched two Intensive Community Treatment (ICT) pilot programs in Oakland and Sacramento. The specialized, field-based program provided integrated care to people with high risk and high levels of needs with the goal of engaging individuals with services, stabilize their base domains, and reduce the frequency and duration of hospitalizations. These programs also offer supplementary services including linkage to substance use counseling, housing, employment, benefits, and dental services.

“Amina’s skillful approach with patients who are severely psychiatrically unstable, her persistence, her faith and hope that good will come of how MUCH energy she puts into these hard-to-reach unstable Kaiser members who are desperately in need of treatment pays off time and time again.”

— Partner, Kaiser Permanente

Since then, the ICT programs have been so successful that in April 2019, Telecare won the proposal to implement the Kaiser Permanente ICT teams across Northern California. This multi-phased approach consists of four geographical zones, or “Hubs,” each with a satellite program in Northern California. Each Hub consists of Teams that work directly with corresponding Kaiser Permanente medical centers in their zone. Currently, Telecare has completed three out of four phases of implementation for this project.

Telecare also partners with Kaiser Permanente to deliver services in seven counties across California: Alameda, Contra Costa, San Diego, Solano, Sonoma, San Joaquin, and Sacramento.

We are so proud of our staff and we are so thankful for our partnership with Kaiser Permanente so we can continue to do great work.