State mental health policy: an interactive tool to estimate costs and resources for a first-episode psychosis initiative in New York State.

The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH), which is a partner in the RAISE (Recovery After Initial Schizophrenia Episode) Connection program, is scaling up services for individuals with first-episode psychosis (FEP) and must estimate the number of specialized treatment teams needed across the state. This column describes a modeling tool that allows users to input various estimates for relevant variables and see the impact on projections for number of FEP teams needed and the costs of those teams. The interactive, Excel-based tool can be adapted for other treatment settings and programs.