The first in-person meeting for our new Community Based Integrated Care Fellowship was held earlier this month at Talaris Conference Center. Fourteen fellows from nine counties in Washington are participating in this year-long fellowship modeled after an executive MBA program. The fellowship focuses on increasing access to effective mental health care by teaching psychiatric providers to leverage their expertise through using telepsychiatry and other technologies and by working with an integrated mental health care team in primary care settings. The program includes quarterly, in-person meetings, weekly online didactic content, a year-long quality improvement project with monthly support from UW faculty, and monthly meetings with a faculty mentor.

Led by Anna Ratzliff, MD, PhD, the Community Based Integrated Care Fellowship involves an enormous number of faculty members who are serving as didactic presenters, faculty mentors, or both. In addition to Dr. Ratzliff, the leadership team includes Amy Bauer, MD, Quality Improvement Lead; Jennifer Erickson, DO, In-Person Session Lead; Katherine Palm-Cruz, MD, Mentoring Lead; Ramanpreet Toor, MD, Online Didactics Lead; Lydia Chwastiak, MD, Quality Improvement Cohort Lead and faculty mentors Joe Cerimele, MD, Mark Duncan, MD, and Tanya Keeble, MD. Support staff include Melissa Farnum, MA, Alan Gojdics, MEd, Niambi Kanye, Betsy Payn, Diana Roll and Cara Towle.

The program is part of the Integrated Care Training Program which is funded and supported by the Washington State Legislature through the Safety-Net Hospital Assessment, working to expand access to psychiatric services throughout the State of Washington.