The Cummings Foundation for Behavioral Health
History
Founded in 1976 as the Foundation for Behavioral Health, it became the research and service organization that conducted the Hawaii Medicaid Project (1981-1988), a three-way research/service contract among the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), the State of Hawaii, and the Foundation for Behavioral Health functioning as the Biodyne Institute. A new delivery system was created, the Biodyne Centers, to deliver collaborative behavioral healthcare services to the 36,000 Medicaid beneficiaries and the 91,000 federal employees on the Island of Oahu (Honolulu) under a randomized, controlled 7-year study, with Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., Sc.D., as the principal investigator and Herbert Dorken, Ph.D. as co-principal investigator.
From 1985 to 1995 and functioning as the Biodyne Institute, it served as the data collection and research arm of American Biodyne, Inc. (to be described below). Preceding this (1959-1985) it was the data collection of the service program at the Northern California Kaiser Permanente. Added together, there are now 50 years (1959-2010)of experience and research defining what is now known as the Biodyne Model which has pioneered:
- Brief, focused and intermittent psychotherapy throughout the life cycle
- Psychotherapy co-located in the mainstream health system and an integral part of it
- Psychotherapy as the first line intervention in behavioral health (rather than medication).
Subsumed in 1995 as a subsidiary of The Nicholas & Dorothy Cummings Foundation, it was re-incorporated and reorganized in 2003 as an independent nonprofit research, educational and service institute. Known as the Cummings Foundation for Behavioral Health, its main source of funding and support is The Nicholas & Dorothy Cummings Foundation. It is currently embarked on a number of projects to be described.
Headquarters Building
The Cummings Foundation for Behavioral Health occupied its newly built headquarters building in October 2004. Situated high atop a mountain overlooking all of Reno and the Truckee Meadows, and flanked by the Sierra Nevada Mountains, classes, seminars, distance learning and clinical supervision are being conducted.
The Healthcare Utilization and Cost Series
- Volume 1 (1991):
Medical Cost Offset: A Reprinting of the Seminal Research Conducted at Kaiser Permanente, 1963-1981.
Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., and William T. Follette, M.D. - Volume 2 (1993):
Medicaid, Managed Behavioral Health and Implications for Public Policy: A Report of the HCFA-Hawaii Medicaid project and Other readings.
Nicholas A. Cummings. Ph.D., Herbert Dorken, Ph.D., Michael S. Pallak, Ph.D., and Curtis Henke, Ph.D. - Volume 3 (1994):
The Financing and Organization of Universal Healthcare: A Proposal to the National Academies of Practice.
Herbert Dorken, Ph.D. (Forward by Nicholas Cummings, Ph.D.) - Volume 4 (1995):
The Impact of the Biodyne Model on Medical Cost Offset: A Sampling of Research Projects.
Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., Sc.D., Editor. - Volume 5 (2002):
The Impact of Medical Cost Offset on Practice and Research: Making It Work for You.
Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., Sc.D., William T. O’Donohue, Ph.D., and Kyle E. Ferguson, M.A., Editors. - Volume 6 (2003):
Behavioral Health as Primary Care: Beyond Efficacy to Effectiveness.
Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., Sc.D., William T. O’Donohue, Ph.D., and Kyle E. Ferguson, M.A., Editors. - Volume 7 (2004):
Early Detection and Treatment of Substance Abuse within Integrated Primary Care.
Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., Sc.D., Melanie Duckworth, Ph.D., William T. O’Donohue, Ph.D., and Kyle E. Ferguson, M.A., Editors. - Volume 8 (2005):
Psychological Approaches to Chronic Disease Management
Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., William T. O’Donohue, Ph.D., and Elizabeth Naylor, M.A., Editors. - Volume 9 (2005):
Universal Healthcare: Readings for Mental health Professionals
Nicholas A. Cummings, Ph.D., William T. O’Donohue, Ph.D., and Michael Cucciare, M.A., Editors.