Mental Health Innovation Services & Outcomes (MHISO)

Aerial view of the U-M medical campus

Improving Care & Outcomes

Our team brings together faculty who lead high-impact health services research.
Our Mission
The program’s mission is to improve care and outcomes for individuals with mental health and substance use conditions by identifying and advancing successful practices within health systems, developing and testing innovative interventions, and informing evidence-based policy.

Education

Serious Mental Illness Treatment Resource and Evaluation Center (SMITREC) offers a two-year, prestigious national fellowship, offered in partnership with the U-M Medical School Department of Psychiatry. 

Fellows are based within SMITREC and the Mental Health Services, Translation and Outcomes team (MHSOT).

VA Serious Mental Illness Treatment & Research Training

Primary training occurs through supervised clinical service delivery with patients, paired with substantial research skill development.

SMITREC Partnership

Faculty also contribute to the Serious Mental Illness Treatment Resource and Evaluation Center (SMITREC). SMITREC conducts population monitoring, program evaluation, performance assessment, and effectiveness studies for the VA’s Office of Mental Health Operations, with the goal of reducing variability in care, evaluating new programs, enhancing care for older Veterans, improving prescribing practices, evaluating outcomes, and supporting suicide prevention.

Research

MHISO collaborates closely with the VA Center for Clinical Management Research (CCMR) in Ann Arbor, and many faculty hold joint appointments. MHISO faculty conduct research on substance use disorders, depression, PTSD, geriatric mental health, integrated care, and suicide. Methods include pharmacoepidemiology, observational studies, policy analysis, randomized clinical trials, patient-reported outcomes, and mobile health. 

Key research partners include the Veterans Health Administration, CDC, State HHS, and funding agencies such as NIMH, NIDA, and the Department of Defense. MHISO also partners with the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and the Injury Center at U-M.

Suicide:

  • Predictors and warning signs of suicidal behaviors and suicide mortality
  • Development of suicide prevention interventions and studying the effectiveness of interventions clinical trials
  • Personalized approaches to suicide prevention
  • Testing implementation strategies to increase the reach of evidence-based suicide prevention practices

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):

  • Optimizing trauma-focused evidence-based psychotherapies for PTSD
  • Developing and testing strategies for addressing PTSD comorbidities
  • Improving training for PTSD psychotherapies and increasing access to care for PTSD

Primary and mental health care integration:

  • Implementation and evaluation of integrated care in VHA and across Michigan
  • Testing the expansion of integrated care practices to address conditions such as PTSD and loneliness

Mood Disorders:

  • Perinatal depression
  • Depression care quality and outcomes in VHA, including subspecialty services such as ketamine or esketamine for treatment resistant depression

Substance abuse disorders and dual diagnoses:

  • Outcome predictors for substance abuse treatment
  • Brief interventions for substance use disorders

Primary Research Faculty

Affiliated Faculty:

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