Treatment: Collaborative Care / Integrated Care

Nicholas Tacke

I am a psychiatric consultant in the Behavioral Health Integration Program and inpatient psychiatrist at the Center for Behavioral Health and Learning.  Whether in the clinic or hospital, I seek to improve access to high quality psychiatric care, especially in patients with medical complexity and those who have traditionally been underserved. I am passionate about achieving this mission through the integration of psychiatric care into primary care settings. The best part of my job is exploring with patients how their physical health, mental health, identities, and past experiences all contribute to their overall well-being. I enjoy teaching both trainees in psychiatry as well as non-psychiatric providers.

Lily Assaad

I am a faculty member and licensed clinical psychologist in the University of Washington’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Before joining this department, I completed my Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Purdue University, residency at the University of Washington, and fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.

My research interests primarily center around romantic relationship functioning and personality disorder (PD) measurement. My line of PD  research centers around how the use of a trait-based, dimensional approach to assessing and measuring PDs may increase construct validity, reliability, and diagnostic accuracy relating to PDs. My romantic relationship research centers around how romantic relationship functioning and interpersonal behaviors are associated with psychopathology diagnoses and symptoms.

As a clinician, I specialize in treating suicidality and self-harm using comprehensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy; in treating PTSD using Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure; and in treating anxiety-related disorders using exposure therapies like Exposure and Response Prevention for OCD and Exposure for Social Anxiety. I am also passionate about providing couples’ therapy.

Randall Espinoza

I am currently the Medical Director at the Garvey Institute Center for Neuromodulation and am providing leadership to help grow our portfolio in the area of Neuromodulation and Interventional Psychiatry. Before coming to the UW, I was the Muriel Harris Chair of Geriatric Psychiatry and Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at UCLA. While at UCLA, I held many administrative, clinical and teaching leadership positions including serving as Medical Director of Inpatient Geriatric Psychiatry, Chief of Staff of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Founding Faculty of the UCLA Neuromodulation Division, Medical Director of the ECT and Interventional Psychiatry Program, among others.

I recently became Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of ECT and Related Therapies, the official publication of the International Society of ECT and Neurostimulation. My research projects have included investigating various neuromodulation and interventional therapies and developing novel educational programs and curricula. I have an abiding interest in mentoring and helping faculty at the start of their careers and a commitment to fostering the advancement of women and underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in academic medicine.

Susanne Weber

I am a consult psychiatrist and clinical instructor at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. I work with people undergoing active cancer care. I previously practiced in the VA outpatient mental health clinic with veterans with mood disorders, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and chronic and serious mental illness. I recently worked as a consult psychiatrist with the Swedish Primary Care Clinics, address a wide variety of concerns in a collaborative behavioral health care setting. I enjoy being a part of medical education, both learning and teaching. However, patient care always comes first.

Sarah Danzo

My research broadly aims to better understand the etiology of depression and risk behaviors such as suicide and substance use across development, and translate findings to inform prevention and intervention strategies for youth and families.  My work focuses on partnering with communities and primary care clinics to improve access to and use of effective mental health services.

My current projects include studies focused on adapting and evaluating suicide prevention intervention and implementation strategies for use with adolescents and their families in primary care and outpatient medical settings, including developing and adapting brief, just-in-time, and digital interventions to expand access to services.

In addition to research, I am also a clinical psychologist in the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program and the Crisis Care Clinic at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

Tuesday Burns

I enjoy collaborating with patients and viewing their concerns through a holistic lens. I believe that transparent, integrated care is the most effective way to arrive at an accurate case conceptualization and treatment plan. My background in the neurosciences and medical psychiatry has offered me a comprehensive understanding of the biologic basis of psychiatric illness and the strength of the mind-body connection. My practice has span clinical, academic and research realms and afforded me opportunities to work with treatment-resistant depression, neuromodulation therapies, medical complexities and patients impacted by hormonal changes related to puberty, pregnancy, gender transitions and menopause. I enjoy learning from my patients and remain humbled by their resilience.

Bill O’Connell

As part of my faculty appointment, I am Director of the Behavioral Health Support Specialist (BHSS) Workforce Development Project.  My responsibilities include oversight of curriculum development, practicum guidelines, development of community partnerships and advocacy for reimbursement pathways.

Behavioral Health Support Specialist Workforce Development Project

I am working with a talented project team to develop a competency framework and curriculum to prepare a bachelor level Behavioral Health Support Specialist (BHSS).  A BHSS will deliver brief, culturally responsive, evidence-informed interventions for common mental and behavioral health conditions under supervision in a team-based setting.  The BHSS will use a measurement-based care approach to ensure patients are receiving the right level of care at the right dose.  Crisis services, integrated care and specialty behavioral healthcare are examples of work environments that will benefit from a BHSS.  Our project goal is to support higher educational programs across the state implement the BHSS clinical training program in academic year 25-26. During my time working as a primary care behavioral health consultant, I frequently met with senior patients from diverse backgrounds who had never spoken with a behavioral health provider in their lifetime despite experiencing moderate to severe symptoms of a mental or behavioral health condition.  One reason I found unacceptable was lack of access to services.  The bachelor level Behavioral Health Support Specialist role is one solution of many to improving access to care and expanding the available workforce.

Scholarship

My current scholarship focuses on behavioral health workforce development and best practices in teaching and training bachelor level intervention specialists for behavioral health settings. In addition to my current role as BHSS project co-investigator, I served as principal investigator for a philanthropic gift from Robert Craves to expand access to school counseling services at Bailey Gatzert Elementary School in the Yesler Terrace neighborhood of Seattle. I also engaged in community-based research with Village Spirit Center for Community Change and Healing located in the Central District to produce a mental health needs assessment for residents who had experienced homelessness prior to obtaining secure housing. Previous peer reviewed publications focused on counselor preparation for employment in behavioral health agencies, best practices in counselor preparation and ethical dilemmas in counselor practice.

Certification and Licensure

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in the State of Washington and a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Colorado.  Additionally, I am a National Certified Counselor (NCC), and an Approved Clinical Supervisor (ACS) through the National Board of Certified Counselors and the Center for Credentialing and Education.

Career Roles

  • Associate Professor (WOT), Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington (2022-Present).
  • Regional Director of Behavioral Health and Primary Care Behavioral Health Consultant for One Medical Seniors (2018-2021)
  • Department Chair of Leadership and Professional Studies at Seattle University (2014-2017)
  • Associate Professor of Clinical Mental Health and School Counseling at Seattle University (2010-2019)
  • Associate Professor of Clinical Mental Health and School Counseling at Xavier University in Ohio (2001-2010)
  • Past President of the Ohio Counseling Association (2006-2009)
  • Assistant Clinical Director for Talbert House Inc. (1998-2001)
  • *Private Practice Therapist and Consultant (1997-2010)
  • Adult Therapist for Clermont Counseling Center in Milford, Ohio (1994-1997)
  • Crisis Intervention Specialist for Talbert House Inc. (1990-1993)
  • Adult Therapist for Care Unit Chemical Dependency Hospital in Ohio (1988-1990)

*I owned a private practice in the Greater Cincinnati Area for twelve years providing behavioral medicine consultation in an integrated pain management practice, clinical consultation to behavioral health organizations, and training and education on ethical and professional issues for mental health providers.  Additionally, I provided individual, couple and family counseling in a group psychology practice with a special focus on serving the LGBTQI+ community and persons with trauma history.

Charles C. Engel

Dr. Charles Engel (he/him) is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Core VA HSR&D Investigator in the Seattle Center for Innovation, Codirector of the Center’s Advanced Fellowship on Learning Health Systems, and Adjunct Physician Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation. Engel’s work focuses on trauma-informed health systems and strategies for improving the quality of primary care for chronic mental and physical health conditions. His research has covered traumatic injury and post-trauma syndromes ranging from blast injury, mild traumatic brain injury and Gulf War syndrome to PTSD and depression. Engel is experienced at mixed qualitative and quantitative methods and has led large pragmatic randomized trials, program evaluations, and implementation science studies. He has authored or coauthored nearly 200 scholarly papers, including in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and the American Journal of Psychiatry. Funding for his work has come from the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense and other organizations. Before joining UW Psychiatry and the AIMS Center in 2021, Dr. Engel was Senior Physician Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation from 2013 to 2020 and Associate Chair (Research) at Uniformed Services University’s Department of Psychiatry from 2001-2013. Engel has served on the board of directors of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, has testified twice before Congress, received a number of awards, and delivered invited lectures in over 10 countries. He received both his MD and MPH from the University of Washington.