CINDY SANDERS

Dennis Morrison (left) and Tom Doub (right) standing in front of the new logo at the open house last month.

Last month, Centerstone Research Institute officially unveiled new office space, a new logo and the organization’s 100th research study.

With the springtime merger of Nashville-based Centerstone with Indiana-based Center for Behavioral Health (CBH) and Quinco Behavioral Health Systems, the combined organization became the nation’s largest provider of community-based behavioral health services. In the merger, Dennis Morrison, PhD, formerly CEO of CBH, was tapped to lead the efforts of Centerstone Research Institute.

“We took all the research and information technology assets from the three corporations and put them into a new corporation … that’s CRI,” explained Morrison.

He added the new entity has four divisions:

Research: Headed by Tom Doub, PhD, this division actively works with local and national partners to improve the knowledge base and ultimately practice habits in behavioral health.

Information Technology: Under the leadership of Wayne Easterwood, the short-term task of this division is to unite the electronic records of the three companies prior to the merger and build a common platform.

Clinical Informatics: Led by Frank Stevens, PhD, the task of this group is to take knowledge gained from research and find the most effective way to share that information in the clinical setting. The Human Factors Lab will allow clinicians to evaluate and tweak the methods of populating electronic records and sharing data to maximize efficacy in a real-world setting.

Behavioral Pathway Systems: The fourth division, led by Paul Lefkovitz, PhD, is a commercial provider of behavioral health benchmarking services nationally. Currently, the group has more than 300 corporate customers and about 1,100 individual subscribers. Additionally, BPS offers a range of performance management and consultative services.

CRI has approximately 80 staff members. Although headquartered in Indiana, 60 staff members are located in Nashville. The new office on Vantage Way in MetroCenter features 8,000 square feet of built out space and is home to 35 researchers.

Doub, vice president of research for CRI, said Centerstone has a long history of research centered on improving clinical care. By creating the Institutional Review Board to ensure the highest quality of ethics is maintained, Doub said the group has been very successful in the pursuit of federal grant dollars and has secured nearly $40 million since 2004. He also said CRI has expedited their work by forming collaborative partnerships with universities and key players in the behavioral health field on a local and national level.

At last month’s festivities, CRI also celebrated the 100th research project, which is being led by R. Lyle Cooper, PhD, who is on faculty at the University of Tennessee’s School of Social Work in Nashville. The research is designed to explore the efficacy of a computer-based method of training case managers on a clinical technique known as motivational enhancement.

Between the clinical programs in Indiana and Tennessee, Centerstone America will serve approximately 70,000 people a year.

“One of the reasons we got into research to begin with,” said Doub, “is to see research happen in the real world.”

Morrison concluded that the combined efforts of CRI should have a positive impact on the integration of primary behavioral healthcare with the primary care physician on both a clinical and information technology level.