Program combines mental, medical health for homeless people

Health problems of homeless people are often compounded by medical illness. A new program will bring together psychiatrists and medical providers in an initiative to better coordinate caring for homeless people's mental and physical needs.

Massachusetts General Hospital is giving $2.5 million over five years to the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which will work with the state Department of Mental Health. Two full-time psychiatrists will be appointed to the DMH staff and see patients at the agency's facilities. A psychiatrist in training and a care coordinator will also be part of a team working with medical clinicians.

"It's no exaggeration to say that this funding will help revolutionize the way we practice medicine by enabling us to create treatment teams that address our patients’ mental and medical needs in a holistic way," Robert Taube, executive director of Boston Health Care for the Homeless, said in a statement announcing the initiative today. "We’re very pleased that it will also enable us to closely collaborate with DMH in providing services to homeless patients."

Since it was created in 1985, doctors and nurses from Boston Health Care for the Homeless have been caring for patients on the streets and in shelters and soup kitchens as well as in clinics at Mass. General, Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, and Boston Medical Center.