Psychiatrist Yeates Conwell, M.D., Named "Innovation Advisor"

Geriatric psychiatrist Yeates Conwell, M.D., was chosen as one of 73 “Innovation Advisors”—and the only psychiatrist—in the federal government’s Innovation Advisors Program (IAP). The IAP encourages Conwell and other "Innovators" in the program to conduct a project that will yield results around each component of three goals: better health, better-quality care, and lower costs.

As director of a partnership between University of Rochester Medical Center and a community services provider network called the Senior Health and Research (SHARE) Alliance, Conwell will try to develop collaborative systems of care integrating primary care, mental health care and—most uniquely—community senior-service agencies in the care of depressed elderly in the community. His first project is a dementia care program that will link memory-disorder specialty services (geriatric psychiatry, psychology, neurology, general medicine, and nursing) with social work and other community-based care to optimize independent functioning and quality of life for people with dementia and their families, while reducing overall costs.

The IAP and Conwell’s vision as an Innovation Advisor dovetails with a growing movement toward “integrated care,” merging primary care and mental health treatment, often in co-located facilities. For more information about Conwell and the IAP see the April 20 issue of Psychiatric News here.

(Image: Courtesy Yeates Conwell, M.D.)

 

---