Shawnee Mental Health Center in Portsmouth, Ohio has teamed up with the Center for Evidence-Based Practices at Case Western Reserve University to develop one of the first planning and evaluation instruments in the United States that helps organizations integrate primary and behavioral healthcare for people with severe mental illness. Shawnee is using the new Integrated Treatment Tool to develop and improve primary care facilities and services in its three-county service area. This initiative is funded by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The Shawnee Mental Health Center not only serves three of the poorest, most rural regions in Ohio-Lawrence, Scioto, and Adams counties-with mental health and tobacco recovery services, but it also lies in the heart of tobacco country, making the notion of kicking the habit seem less doable than flicking a cigarette butt across the Ohio River.