The Center presented its Fifth Annual Medical Directors’ Network Symposium, “Leadership and Management: The Medical Director’s Role in Communicating and Supervising,” on May 30, 2015, at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center on the UNC-CH campus. The Symposium is designed to address specific topics that impact the role of medical directors and other psychiatrists in North Carolina’s changing public mental health system.
Approximately 60 medical directors from Critical Access Behavioral Health Agencies (CABHAs) and Managed Care Organizations (MC0s), as well as psychiatrists from Community Care North Carolina (CCNC) and Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams from around the state, attended the one-day event.
Warren Newton, MD, MPH, new director of North Carolina Area Health Education Centers (NC AHEC) and chair, UNC Department of Family Medicine, opened the morning session, discussing “Building Behavioral Health into New Systems of Care.”
Participants heard from Matthew Pearsall, PhD, assistant professor, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, who presented “Leading through Empowerment and Motivation.” Other sessions included a look at the role of quality supervision in evidence-based care and how medical directors and their chief executive officers communicate.
“The annual meeting continues to provide medical directors across the state a unique opportunity to improve their leadership skills and to stay on top of issues they will encounter on the job,” says John H. Gilmore, MD, director of the Network and the Center, Alice Eure Distinguished Professor and vice chair, Research and Scientific Affairs, in the Department of Psychiatry.
“It is also a nice opportunity to network and see how others are approaching issues common to all providers in the state’s mental health system.”
The N.C. Community Medical Directors’ Network was created in 2010 by the Center in collaboration with North Carolina Area Health Education Centers (NC AHEC).