Oregon's health reform agency wants to create a system of regional entities that would coordinate mental health care and behavioral health care in each region in the state.
The Oregon Health Authority included that idea in a list of four recommendations released March 24.
A regional entity would oversee the region's behavioral health care providers. The entity also would oversee the behavioral health efforts of organizations not typically seen as behavioral health services providers, such as schools and law enforcement agencies, according to the authority.
The authority also recommended that the state adopt statewide behavioral health care competence standards, come up with a plan for improving behavioral health care worker training, and make more use of information technology tools, such as mapping systems, to understand where it needs to increase the supply of providers.
The authority based the recommendations on work done by a commission that the authority created last summer.
Oregon has been active at developing and implementing health system change programs.
The state used Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion money to expand Medicaid enrollment.