Amela Blekic, M.D., is clinical associate professor of psychiatry and medical director for inpatient and consultation psychiatric services, OHSU School of Medicine.

January 12, 2016

What’s been the most interesting development in your area in the last two years?

While there are research efforts and achievements nationally to understand brain, mental illness and behavior, I would like to highlight the health reform, mental health parity act and work on integration of mental and physical health. There is ever growing recognition of importance for coordinated care across disciplines and incorporation of mental health into primary care and other settings. That is the only way to assure the highest level of care for the population with the outcomes of better health, better care and lower costs for our patients.

What projects are you currently working on and are there opportunities for fellow faculty to participate?

I have been involved in the very exciting project, the collaborative effort between OHSU, Legacy Health, Kaiser Permanente and Adventist, to build the Unity Center for Behavioral Health. The center is planned to be a place for a psychiatric hospital and psychiatric emergency services located at Legacy’s Holladay Park campus. The psychiatric hospital, in addition to adult units, will have a child unit as well. The psychiatric emergency services will provide crisis stabilization, medication management, social work and case management, but also family and peer support as well as transition of care teams. The vision for Unity is to work with our patients using trauma-informed, evidence-based models with facilitation of person-centered treatment.

The project involving four big systems has been a great collaboration of people and teams working together to achieve the mutual goal of helping people with mental illness and in mental health crisis.

What is the most important aspect of support that OHSU provides to you currently and how would you like this or other support to grow in the future?

I have been at OHSU for over 15 years and I am grateful for the opportunity to work closely with so many colleagues from different disciplines and be a part of this great academic team. It is the collaborative work with our medicine and surgery colleagues as well as the support from Department of Psychiatry leadership and colleagues that make a difference in challenging cases and situations and make us strive for excellence. I would like to continue supporting and strengthening OHSU interdisciplinary and collaborative work that not only benefits our patients but also the OHSU community.

About Three Questions
This Q&A series features OHSU School of Medicine faculty members talking about their work with the goal of getting to know them and different areas across the school. View more