Dr. Jennifer Thomas, MD, FASAM is a board member for ISAM. She is board-certified in Family and Addiction Medicine and currently serves as Medical Director of Integrated Behavioral Health at Morris Hospital in Morris, IL.

 

Dr. Thomas practices in a community-based, rural setting in Gardner and Braidwood, IL and is passionate about integrating behavioral health services into primary care. She completed the

2018 University of California Irvine Train New Trainers Primary Care Psychiatry Fellowship. As a leader in developing partnerships between academic research settings and community-based

providers, Dr. Thomas works closely with the University of Washington AIMS Center as a clinical trainer to coach other clinicians in developing Integrated Behavioral Health efforts using the Collaborative Care Model ( CoCM.) Dr. Thomas serves as Project Lead for Morris Hospital’s partnership with the AIMS Center’s NIMH-sponsored research study CHAMP: Collaborating to Heal Addiction and Mental Health in Primary Care. The CHAMP study is researching whether patients with co-occurring OUD and mental health conditions have improved clinical outcomes when treated by an Integrated Behavioral Health team.

 

Dr. Thomas is an advocate for integrating behavioral health into the primary care setting on the national level as well. Serving on the Board of Directors, Dr. Thomas helps guide the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association, CFHA. CFHA is a national,

interdisciplinary professional organization, made up of medical providers, psychiatrists, behavioral health clinicians, administrators, and others working in Behavioral Health Integration. CFHA guides the national conversation on Integrated Care policy and advocacy, professional development, and continuing education for frontline healthcare workers. Dr. Thomas also serves as the Clinical Advisor for the American Medical

Association’s first cohort of the BHI Immersion Program, where 24 clinicians from across the country are participating in a learning collaborative to implement BHI in their health systems.

 

As an advocate for increasing access to medication for Opioid Use Disorder, particularly in rural settings, Dr. Thomas was part of an inaugural cohort of 5 IL physicians supported by ISAM to become board-certified in Addiction Medicine through the ABPM Practice Pathway in 2021. Dr. Thomas hopes to encourage additional primary care providers to incorporate OUD care into their practices. She believes integrated behavioral health models, such as Collaborative Care, could make a tremendous impact on increasing access to buprenorphine in communities across the U.S.