Integrating Mental Health Services into Primary Care: The Hamilton FHT Mental Health Program

The Hamilton Family Health Team Mental Health Program (formerly the Hamilton HSO Mental Health Program) has integrated mental health services into the offices of family physicians across Hamilton, a community of 500,000 in southern Ontario, Canada, since 1994. Beginning with 45 family physicians, the program underwent two major expansions in 1996 and 2005 and now serves 148 family physicians in 80 different practices.The success of the program over the last 13 years has been built on a combination of innovative and high-quality mental health services delivered in the offices of participating family physicians and a program-wide organizational framework that has coordinated these activities, This chapter describes the way the program functions and the key role a central organizational framework has played in establishing and maintaining a program that delivers services in multiple primary care settings.