A Call for Integrated Psychiatry-Psychology Collaboration on Consult-Liaison Services: Experiences of a Psychology Extern and Recommendations for Collaborative Care

Few institutions have integrated psychologists into consult-liaison (CL) psychiatry services caring for patients with medical conditions and comorbid serious mental illnesses (SMI). To our knowledge, no studies have explored the experiences of an integrated pre-doctoral psychologist on a CL psychiatry service and applications of collaborative care. The present study aims to 1) highlight the experiences of a psychology extern on an adult CL psychiatry service in a public academic hospital, and 2) apply a collaborative care framework to provide recommendations for implementing integrated psychiatry-psychology collaboration. A semi-structured qualitative interview was performed with the team’s psychology extern to elicit practice goals and setting. As of June 2022, the psychology extern saw 76 inpatient adults over the year-long externship period. Through diverse case vignettes, we illustrate the extern’s unique roles in providing psychotherapeutic interventions to enhance patients’ coping skills. We further found that embedding a psychology extern within the CL psychiatry service follows the integrated model of collaborative care. We thus apply a collaborative care framework to guide CL services in using multidisciplinary teams to improve care quality for inpatient adults. Leveraging the expertise of a psychology extern in real-time collaboration with CL psychiatry teams can enhance patient-centered care and warrants broader institutional implementation. Future studies are needed to explore the efficacy of integrated psychiatry-psychology collaboration on provider perspectives and clinical outcomes.