Roundtable – Expanding Mental Health Care in Diverse Communities Globally and in the U.S. (TIPS 2018)

This roundtable discussion was part of the 2018 Technology in Psychiatry Summit, an event sponsored by the McLean Institute for Technology in Psychiatry, which occurred November 1-2, 2018 at JB Martin Conference Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.

Technology is beginning to narrow gaps in our ability to translate mental health care strategies across global and local contexts, sometimes taking successes from the developing world and applying them in under-resourced areas in first and second world regions. And yet, while access has expanded, equity of those services remains a daunting challenge across high and low resource countries and communities, both here in the U.S. and abroad. Leaders from McLean, Harvard, Northwestern, and Partners Connected Health will come together to discuss how technology-based models can adequately address mental health care strategies across global and local contexts.

Panelists

Kimberlyn Leary, PhD, MPA, is an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and an associate professor in the department of health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she is the “Enabling Change” program director. Leary is also the executive director of the Division of Women’s Mental Health and the executive director of policy outreach at McLean/Harvard Medical School, and a fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School and with New America’s International Security Program.

David Mohr, PhD, trained as a psychologist, is a professor of Preventive Medicine in the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, with appointments in the Departments of Psychiatry and Medical Social Sciences. He is also the director of Northwestern University’s Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies (CBITs). Dr. Mohr’s work lies at the intersection of behavioral science, technology, and clinical research, focusing on the design and implementation of interventions that harness wireless and web-based technologies to promote mental health and wellness.

Kamal Jethwani, MD, MPH, is the senior director of Connected Health Innovation, where he leads a multidisciplinary team in creating and validating innovative, technology-enabled solutions to re-imagine the healthcare experience. Dr. Jethwani focuses on enabling better care by improving patient engagement, patient-provider communication, and patient satisfaction. His work so far has shown that programs that are personalized to each patient’s unique psychology and needs forge higher engagement, and in turn, better outcomes. He has worked extensively with sensor technology, wearables, and mobile devices to personalize care and understand behavioral motivations that dictate health choices.

Vikram Patel, MBBS, PhD, is the Pershing Square Professor of Global Health and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. His work spans the areas of mental health problems, child development and adolescent health in the global health context, in particular the use of community resources for assessment, prevention, and recovery. He co-founded Sangath, an Indian NGO that has won the MacArthur Foundation’s International Prize for Creative and Effective Institutions and the WHO Public Health Champion of India award. He co-founded the Movement for Global Mental Health and is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences. He was named in the TIME 100 most influential persons of the year in 2015.

Shelly F. Greenfield, MD, MPH, is a psychiatrist, clinician, and researcher, focused on substance use disorders treatment, gender differences, and substance health services. Her team has investigated implementation of screening, brief counseling, and pharmacotherapy for individuals with alcohol problems and tuberculosis in Russia, and developed and tested an approach to behavioral counseling and naltrexone treatment of alcohol use disorders integrated into routine care for tuberculosis in the Tomsk Oblast, Siberia, in collaboration with colleagues at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Partners in Health.

Please visit mclean.org/itp to learn more about the McLean Institute for Technology in Psychiatry.