With a reputation
for excellence, innovation and extraordinary care of our Nation's
heroes, VA Puget Sound strives to lead the nation in terms of quality,
efficiency and public service through its proven record of innovation
and extraordinary care of Veterans. As the primary referral site for
VA's northwest region, VA Puget Sound provides care for over 90,000
Veterans each year from Washington, Alaska, Montana, Idaho, and Oregon.
The Mental Health Service has a strong academic and teaching mission,
serving as a major research and training site for future psychiatrists,
psychologists, nurses, social workers, and a number of other allied health
professionals. The VA Puget Sound has one of the Nation’s largest VA research
budgets, and is on the leading edge in many areas impacting our Veteran
population to include traumatic brain injury, telemental health, smoking
cessation, geriatrics, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), to name a few.
Mental Health Research
Mental health research is integral to the mission of the VA
Puget Sound and to the advancement of the healthcare of veterans across the
country.
MIRECC
The VA Puget
Sound hosts one of ten nationwide Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Centers (MIRECC), the Northwest MIRECC. The mission of the Northwest MIRECC is to
apply modern genetic, neurobiologic and clinical trial methodology to the
discovery and development of new and more effective treatments for major and
often treatment resistant mental disorders afflicting veterans and the active
duty combat personnel who will become veterans.
Translational
research efforts focus on treatment for PTSD and its substance abuse
comorbidities (alcohol and tobacco); the chronic behavioral consequences of
mTBI and its objective diagnosis through biomarkers; the elderly veteran with
agitated dementia; and schizophrenia and the adverse metabolic consequences of
antipsychotic drug therapy.
CESATE
The VA Puget
Sound also hosts the Center of Excellence in Substance Abuse Treatment and
Education (CESATE), an independently funded research and education center
devoted to the research of and provision of education in the treatment of
veterans with substance use disorders.
CESATE provides a robust environment for researchers devoted to
substance use disorders across numerous clinical specialties.
GRECC
The VA Puget Sound Healthcare System’s Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) works
to integrate high-quality, cost-effective models of clinical care, basic and
applied research, and geriatric education with existing programs and resources.
The GRECC consistently strives to improve the delivery of health care to
elderly veterans through multidisciplinary programs that emphasize disorders of
the aging nervous system.
Our MIRECC, CESATE and GRECC centers consistently draw talented
psychologists, psychiatrists and other researchers from across the country,
making the research environment at VA Puget Sound one of a kind.