Depression in Corporate America: An Integrated Care Approach to Increase Productivity and Improve Outcomes

Abstract

RPh, is executive director of the Foundation for Managed Care P h a rmacy (FMCP), the re s e a rch, education, and philanthropic arm of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP), headquart e red in Alexandria, Vi rginia. FMCP initiates re s e a rch projects involving managed care pharm a c y, with an emphasis on health out-comes, pharmacoeconomics, and pharmacy benefit design. Avey became chief executive of FMCP in 1999, following several years of service to AMCP. After joining AMCP in 1992, he quickly became involved in committee activities; he was elected tre a s u rer of AMCP in 1996 and AMCP president in 1997. Avey received his BS degree and MS degree in pharmacy administration from the University of Utah College of Pharm a c y. He has more than 25 years experience in p h a rm a c y, with a diverse background in retail, long-term care, and management; for the last 14 years, his focus has been on managed care pharm a c y. One of his more notable achievements in this arena was to design and establish a pharmacy benefit management (PBM) division for Smith' s Food & Drug Centers, a 150-store chain in the western United States. He worked directly with employers to design and implement their p rescription drug pro g r a m s . Prior to his position at FMCP, Avey spent 4 years at Prospective Health Inc., serv i n g as vice president of operations and building its PBM business from the ground floor. Under his direction, the operation grew from a start-up to an organization that p rocessed 30 million pharmacy claims in 1999. A l b e rto M. Colombi, MD, MPH, has been corporate medical director of PPG Industries, Inc., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, since 1995. In this capacity, he has devoted the past few years to making the case for integrated (occupational and nonoccupational) health and productivity management. A native of Milan, Italy, Colombi earned his doctor of medicine and occupational health degrees from the University of Milan and a master' s degree in public health fro m the University of Pittsburgh. In 2003, Colombi was instrumental in PPG receiving the Occupational and Environmental Health Foundation and the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine Innovation in Occupational and E n v i ronmental Health Aw a rd for the project titled " D e p ression in Primary Care: Wo r k s i t e I n t e rvention and Coordination of Care . " K a t h ryn M. Rost, PhD, is a senior health services re s e a rc h e r, focusing on behavioral health care, and a professor at the School of Medicine, University of Colorado H e a l t h Sciences Center. She serves on the steering committee for the MacArthur Initiative on D e p ression and Primary Care and developed the Depression Calculator, a tool that calculates for employers the impact of the quality of care for depression on employee p roductivity and absenteeism. Rost is the principal investigator on 2 studies funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The first, titled " Quality Improvement for Depression, " looks at the long-term impact of 4 primary care interventions to improve the treatment of d e p ression as well as to estimate the effects of high-quality primary care on long-term d i s a b i l i t y. The second, titled " Depression Treatment Quality Indicators for Employer Use, " is a 5-year NIMH Independent Scientist Career Development Aw a rd; Rost will develop evaluative methods to demonstrate for employers the impact of depression care quality improvement initiatives on employer costs. She is also coinvestigator on a R o b e rt Wood Johnson Foundation grant to estimate the re t u rn on investment for employers who focus on improved primary care depression treatment and to encourage employer purchasers of health care to partner with health plans dedicated to pro v i d i n g h i g h e r-quality depression care . Rost has written more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, given more than 80 pre s e n-tations on her re s e a rch, and has led or participated in 38 funded re s e a rch grants. She received her doctoral degree in the behavioral sciences from Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and a master' s degree in social work