CIMH is collaborating with San Diego County Mental Health and the Texas Mental Health and Mental Retardation Department to provide technical assistance and training to assist California Counties to implement the medication algorithm, incorporating clinician and peer facilitated education for clients. CalMAP is the Statewide California dissemination of the Texas Medication Algorithm Program (TMAP). The primary goal of TMAP, an evidence-based clinical program, is to reduce the immediate and long-term emotional, physical and financial burdens of mental disorders for clients, their families, and their health care systems. Specifically, the program targets clients diagnosed with either schizophrenia, bipolar or major depressive disorders and utilizes well-established disease management strategies. The program is implemented and operated in collaboration with actual clients, as well as consumer/family-representative organizations.

The California Medication Algorithm Project (CalMAP) is designed to help providers, clients and members of clients’ support system work together to achieve the greatest possible health outcomes for individual clients. CalMAP:

• is an evidence-based, consensually agreed upon medication treatment algorithms;
• provides clinical and technical support necessary to allow the clinician to implement the algorithm;
• provides client and family education programs that allow the client to be an active partner in treatment; and,
• provides uniform documentation of care provided and resulting client outcomes.

Implementation of the program requires at the outset considerable training and education of county mental health directors, medical directors and their leadership teams. This would be followed by in depth training of clinic staff and client representatives, as well as varying degrees of re-tooling of clinical operations, documentation, and potentially the general orientation and culture of the effected clinical site(s). Specifically, the CalMAP Project includes:

• development of training materials for medical directors and treatment teams from counties throughout California;
• development and dissemination of training materials which can be customized by and for local consumers to promote effective use of medication;
• orientation and training of individual administrative and clinical management teams in counties ready to pursue implementation of TMAP;
• support of individual counties’ implementation of TMAP (depending on the volume of the above activities); and,
• training and support of client peer educators.

The training is being led by John H. Shale, MD, Medical Director and Anh Thu Bui, MD, of San Diego County Mental Health Services, the first California county to implement the program. They are doing so in collaboration with several of the architects and leaders of the original medication algorithm project in Texas: Steven P. Shon, MD, Medical Director of Texas Mental Health and Mental Retardation, and TMAP Project Co-Director; M. Lynn Crismon, PharmD, The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy, also TMAP Project Co-Director and Cindy Hopkins, Division of Medical Services, of Texas Mental Health and Mental Retardation.