John Kern, MD serves as Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine, where he works at the AIMS Center, which has the mission to "improve the health of populations by advancing effective, integrated behavioral healthcare." His work there focuses on training and implementation support of integration of primary care and behavioral health.
Prior to his UW appointment, he was for 22 years the Chief Medical Officer at Regional Mental Health Center in Merrillville, IN, where he developed and supervised several collaborative care programs, including two IMPACT-model Collaborative Care programs and a PBHCI grant providing primary care for a seriously mentally ill population. He then developed and served as Chief Medical Officer of a new Federally Qualified Health Center.
In Washington he has been developing curriculum and tools to support the medical care of people with serious mental illness in Behavioral Health Agencies across the state. He has published on integrated care for psychiatrists, the care of bipolar disorder in the primary care setting and contributed to the recently-published white paper: “Psychiatry’s Role in Improving the Physical Health of Patients With Serious Mental Illness: A Report From the American Psychiatric Association.” He is a founding member of the National Council's Medical Director Institute.
He served as head trainer for the American Psychiatric Association’s Transforming Cliinical Practice Initiative (TCPi) grant, providing training in Collaborative Care to over 3500 psychiatrists and primary care providers across the country, with a special focus on leading a years-long series of learning collaboratives for providers on Collaborative Care.
For CIHS, he is leading learning collaboratives for organizations and individuals pursuing the integration of behavioral health in primary care, and also for those working to improve the medical care of people with severe mental illness in community mental health settings.