Coordinated Specialty Care for First Episode Psychosis: Recent Advances and Future Opportunities

This presentation will discuss the importance of early intervention for improving treatment engagement and clinical outcomes in psychotic disorders. Scientific support for this approach will be presented, including findings from the Recovery After an Initial Schizophrenia Episode (RAISE) initiative, which demonstrated the effectiveness of multicomponent, person-centered, and team-based intervention for reducing symptoms and improving functioning among young people experiencing an initial episode of psychosis. The talk will cover the core components of Coordinated Specialty Care (CSC), the intervention model tested in RAISE, and how CSC has transformed treatment of early psychosis in the United States. The audience will learn about the Early Psychosis Intervention Network (EPINET), a new learning collaborative that studies the delivery and impact of CSC in 101 communities across the nation. Finally, service users, family members, clinicians, and administrators will be invited to share insights about CSC practices, with the goal of promoting practice-relevant research to improve early intervention services. 
 
Objectives: 
1. Describe the benefits of early and coordinated treatment for first episode psychosis, compared to usual care.  
2. Recognize the six components of Coordinated Specialty Care for first-episode psychosis.  
3. Describe the five characteristics of learning health care systems that drive quality improvement and innovation in health care delivery.