Supporting Older Adults with Comorbid Health Conditions
As individuals age, they are at increased risk of experiencing multiple chronic conditions across both physical and mental health. Adults with comorbid health conditions, especially if these include mental illnesses, often face barriers to engaging in initial care. For many, there are continuing difficulties once engaged in care, like managing multiple providers or feeling like their conditions are being addressed independently.
This webinar will explore:
- Mental Health America’s findings from surveying adults with co-morbid physical and mental health conditions about their care experiences;
- Skills to effectively engage older adults with multiple chronic conditions in care;
- Why integration of physical and behavioral health care is important for older adults, and how to put it into practice.
Speakers
- Maddy Reinert – Senior Director of Population Health, Mental Health America
- Dr. Maureen Nash – Medical Director, Providence Elderplace PACE Oregon (Program of All Inclusive Care of the Elderly)
Maddy Reinert joined Mental Health America (MHA) in 2018, and serves as Senior Director of Population Health. In her role at MHA, Maddy manages the online mental health screening program, which has served nearly 8 million individuals who have come to take a mental health screen and are seeking additional support. She is responsible for the collection, cleaning, analyzing, interpretation and reporting of qualitative and quantitative data for MHA’s population health efforts, including MHA’s report on Creating Better Care for Adults with Comorbid Chronic Conditions. Maddy has a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) with a concentration in Law, Policy and Ethics, and has a particular interest in applying data-driven public health approaches to the prevention of mental health conditions.
Maureen Nash, MD, currently serves as the Medical Director at Providence Elderplace PACE Oregon (a Program of All Inclusive Care of the Elderly). Dr. Nash has dedicated her entire career to working with and advocating for older adults with mental illness. After receiving her MD from the University of Kansas School of Medicine in 1997, she then attended the Combined Internal Medicine/Psychiatry residency program at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, where she also served as chief resident. Dr. Nash is the co-editor of Neurocognitive Behavioral Disorders: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Patient Centered Care, published by Springer Nature in 2019. She is currently a faculty member for Project ECHO for Behavioral Health in Oregon Nursing Facilities, a member of the American Psychiatric Association Council on Geriatric Psychiatry, Oregon Partnership to Improve Dementia Care, and American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. In 2020, Dr. Nash was named the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry Clinician of the Year.