Telva E. Olivares, M.D.

A. Personal Statement
The primary focus of my work for the past 21 years has been to deliver integrated medical and psychiatric care to vulnerable populations with a special emphasis in those with severe and persistent mental illnesses (SPMI) and Latinx populations. I was trained in internal medicine and psychiatry and developed an innate drive to improve the lives of this patient population utilizing my skill sets and passion for the work.
I have made a career of developing innovative services that meet the healthcare needs of these underserved populations while respecting their autonomy and the vulnerability they exhibit for chronic illnesses and shorten lifespan as a consequence of their higher risk for cardiovascular diseases.
With this in mind, at the University of Rochester we developed a NCQA/PCMH primary care clinic for patients with SPMI in 1995, named the Medicine in Psychiatry Services or MIPS. The clinic is staffed with two dually trained physicians in medicine/family medicine and psychiatry, two nurse practitioners and a group of like-minded nurses and support staff. We deliver true integrated care to a cohort of this patient population through their lifespan from age 18 and onward.
In 2007, I was given the task of creating a 10 bed medicine and psychiatry unit (MPU). The first such unit in the region and one of only a handful in the country. The unit was run initially by a dually trained physician and was designed to meet the acute medical needs of the SPMI population. There was a built in preference for all MIPS patients to be admitted exclusively to the unit in order to safeguard critical continuity and transitions of care. Three years later in 2010, the unit’s success in meeting the needs of SPMI and other patients with mental illnesses led to the expansion of the unit to 20 beds, with same admission criteria; acute inpatient medical needs and concurrent, although not always active, mental illness. The unit, now called IMIPS, remains functional and quite successful especially as a unique multidisciplinary training sites for residents, psychology interns and fellows.
Concurrently, in 1999, I established Lazos Fuertes, the first Spanish language mental health clinic in Rochester. Twenty years later the clinic has grown and it is now a training site for Spanish language psychiatry residents and psychology trainees. The clinic has a unique collaboration with the Latino community of Rochester. Some Lazos Fuertes patients with SPMI/SMI receive primary care at our MIPS office in cultural/language sensitive manner by bilingual provider.
My twenty –one-year experience in the field of integrated care of SPMI creating innovative models of care for this population, places me in a unique position to be part of this project, particularly with respect to determination of key data outcomes and implementation of assessments in the MPUs that will have an impact beyond the hospital stay.