WOW Specialty Home Care Service for Individuals With Serious Mental Illness

Integrated Health Care (IHC) is a nurse-managed center of the College of Nursing, University of Illinois at Chicago through which faculty nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists provide primary and mental healthcare services for people with serious mental illness in partnership with Thresholds, the leading freestanding psychiatric rehabilitation agency in Illinois with locations throughout metropolitan Chicago. This article describes a new project to increase access to IHC services and improve health outcomes for the most vulnerable, hard-to-reach Thresholds clients (called members) through an innovative combination of strategies to outreach beyond IHC's three clinic locations, including: house calls, group visits, and telemonitoring, IHC Without Walls (IHC WOW). As an academic nursing practice, we view IHC WOW as an opportunity to integrate teaching and evidence-based practice; accordingly our objectives include expansion of novice and advanced practice experiential learning within this innovative practice domain.