HealthPartners executive honored with mental health innovation award

The Minnesota Association of Community Mental Health Programs improves behavioral health care. Each year, it honors people who have advanced behavioral health care. This year, Karen Lloyd was recognized. She received the award for Program Excellence and Innovation. Dr. Lloyd is the senior director of behavioral health programs and resiliency at HealthPartners.

Dr. Lloyd created the behavioral health department at HealthPartners in 2002. One year later, HealthPartners started offering disease management services to people with depression. We were the first health plan in the state to do so.

Now, Dr. Lloyd’s team has 65 staff members. They provide phone coaching and support to 48,000 members a year. And the return on investment is about 3:1.

Dr. Lloyd has spent more than a decade creating programs to improve mental health. These programs:

• Prevent repeat hospital visits. The first week after being discharged from the hospital can be hard. Dr. Lloyd created a program to schedule therapy visits during that week. Now, the number of patients getting care in the first week has increased 33 percent.
• Prevent emergencies. She helped develop a model to identify members who would likely need hospital care in the next year. Counselors now reach out to offer support in advance. This model later earned a patent from the U.S. Patent Office.
• Raise awareness. Dr. Lloyd helped start National Association of Mental Illness (NAMI) Walks in Minnesota. She served on the board of directors for eight years. This included two years as board chair.
• Direct addiction treatment. She developed a program to give members personalized addiction care. Members get care from one pharmacy, doctor, clinic and hospital.
• Promote well-being. Dr. Lloyd created Be Well. It’s a program that builds emotional health. It’s available to members and the community. And it was recently offered to St. Paul police officers.
• Reduce stigma. She helped launch the Make it OK campaign. This ad campaign encourages people to talk openly about mental health.
• Provide therapy online. Dr. Lloyd gained the rights for an online cognitive behavior therapy program to be used in our region. It’s called Beating the Blues. It was created by the Institute of Psychiatry in London. Research shows it greatly improves depression and anxiety.

Better health and satisfaction

These programs have helped thousands of people. Last year, 95 percent of members who used these services showed progress. More than 60 percent said their health improved. And 96 percent would recommend it to others.