Welcome to the Award Application Site
AAMC Mental/Behavioral Health Training Awards
Action Plan 7: Improve Access to Health Care for All
2023 Call for Applications
Submission Deadline: Friday, April 14, 2023 at 11:59 pm ET
Background Information
In pursuit of our goal to Improve Access to Health Care for All, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) seeks to support its member institutions in their efforts to expand and enhance access to mental and behavioral health care (MH/BH). Accessible mental and behavioral health care is an important issue for all Americans, particularly those within marginalized communities. The MH/BH crisis, coupled with the need for academic medical centers to advance solutions to optimize patient outcomes has led AAMC to focus on integrated behavioral health (IBH) models of care. IBH models are evidence-based strategies that deploy multi-disciplinary teams to coordinate medical and behavioral health care. Evaluations and assessments of IBH models have demonstrated greater access to care, improved patient outcomes, and reductions in stigma associated with seeking mental health care.
Academic medical centers (AMCs) are well-positioned to lead the provision of IBH care but face several challenges. Research and experience suggest that some of these challenges can be overcome with interprofessional team training that optimizes the utilization of team members’ expertise, enhances coordination of care, and strengthens team collaboration and effectiveness.
In support of this, the AAMC is launching the Mental and Behavioral Health Training Awards. The 2023 awards will recognize excellence and innovation of current IBH programs within academic medical centers that focus on team training in IBH as well as preparing and training providers and trainees with the skills and competencies needed to work in IBH care models.
Program Goals
Each awarded institution will receive $20,000-$25,000 to recognize excellence and innovation of their current training program. The MH/BH Training Awards will reflect innovative contributions to health care delivery or medical training that can be models for other institutions to support implementation and/or enhance effectiveness of IBH models. The AAMC expects to make four or five awards in response to this solicitation.
Call for Applications
The AAMC aims to recognize and highlight the efforts of AAMC-member institutions that prioritize team-oriented training while seeking to increase access to mental health care. Applications may fall into one of the three categories below, but are not limited to these examples:
- Interprofessional IBH Team Training: Programs focused on training one or more multi-disciplinary, interprofessional care teams for effective collaboration and coordination.
- Medical Training: Educational programs that focus on multi-disciplinary training in IBH for learners at all levels of the medical education continuum (e.g., pediatric and psychology interns training together in an IBH model, medical students and mental health therapy students training together).
- Physician Faculty Team Training in IBH: Programs to train faculty in effective ways to practice in IBH with delineating and defining the of roles and responsibilities for faculty members on an IBH team.
Application Eligibility
Only AAMC-member teaching hospitals/health systems and medical schools are eligible for an award.
Application Submission
Applicants must complete the online application form. Applicants are encouraged to review the application questions at the end of this document and to develop and save their responses in a separate document before preparing the online form.
Application Checklist(Submit no later than April 14, 2023, 11:59 pm ET)
- Completed online application form.
- Optional: Upload up to two additional materials (e.g., poster presentation materials, article highlights, op-eds, etc.).
Application Review and Award Selection
Applications will be judged by a selection committee and the AAMC expects to announce award decisions in May 2023. All decisions are final. Applications will be judged on a variety of factors, including but not limited to the following:
- Program is already established (i.e., is beyond an initial implementation period)
- Program reflects an innovative approach.
- Program has a multi-disciplinary faculty.
- Program targets multi-specialty/interdisciplinary care teams.
- Program demonstrates the impact of training in enhancing the effectiveness of care team and improving access to MH/BH care.
- Training curriculum includes core principles for team-based care (e.g., establishing shared values for collaboration, shared goals, and benchmarks).
Award Payment
Funding is expected to be distributed in one payment in June 2023, following the selection of awardees and the execution of award agreements.
Post-Award Requirements
The AAMC aims to foster a community that discusses and shares evolving best practices in promoting IBH within academic medicine. Awardees will be expected to present at the 2023 AAMC Annual Meeting: Learn, Serve, Lead. Awardees will also be encouraged to document program experiences, lessons learned, and impact to share with the broader AAMC community engaged in IBH efforts.
Over the course of the year, awardees will also participate in interviews with AAMC staff to enable a deeper understanding of their programs and to consider additional opportunities to share expertise with peers in other health systems and training programs. AAMC will work with the awardee institutions to share generalizable approaches, strategies, and lessons learned (e.g., collaborate on resource development, participate/present in a conference, workshop, and/or webinar).
Questions?
Please direct all inquiries and communications to mentalhealth@aamc.org