TUFH & Woods Services Symposium
November 9, 2023
7:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.
Speaker: Sailaja Musunuri, M.D., Chief of Psychiatry and Executive Vice President of Integrative Medicine at Woods
Register Here
Across the globe, there are 200 million people with intellectual disability and 75 million with autism, many whom experience significant barriers to care and health disparities. In addition, many people with intellectual disability and autism also have other co-occurring conditions, including mental health diagnoses and other chronic conditions, which further complicate their health status. Thus, the symposium will outline the need for integrated health services to improve health outcomes for these populations, the barriers to accessing care, the need to expand the healthcare workforce, and an example of an integrated care service delivery model implemented by Woods System of Care in the United States, which can be replicated through partnerships elsewhere in the world.
Dr. Sailaja Musunuri is an experienced and compassionate physician and psychiatrist (double Board Certified in Adult, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry), providing high-quality medical and psychiatric care with diverse clinical operations and academic experience. In her role as Chief of Psychiatry and Executive Vice President of Integrative Medicine at Woods Services, headquartered in Pennsylvania, U.S., she is an accomplished team leader who has consistently delivered results in numerous clinical settings for over 18 years, including experience working with children and adults with intellectual disability, autism, and co-occurring psychiatric disorders and other complex conditions. Dr. Musunuri serves as Academic Faculty Advisor at Woods for interns and fellows from area health profession schools and is responsible for developing partnerships with academic institutions and health systems to enhance services at Woods and train the next generation of providers.
Dr. Musunuri’s professional training includes receiving her M.D. from Siddhartha Medical College/Nagarjuna University, Vijayawada, India, completing her internship in Psychiatry at Medwin Hospital, Hyderabad, India and residencies in Adult and Child/Adolescent Psychiatry respectively at SIU School of Medicine, Springfield, IL, U.S., and Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, U.S. Dr. Musunuri is considered the premier leader in psychiatry in the U.S. for people with intellectual disability and complex psychiatric and other chronic conditions, is a leader in integrated care, and a leader in training the next generation of practitioners who are desperately needed to address the health disparities of this vulnerable and complicated population.
Register Here
Outcomes for Participants:
- Learn about the global need for integrated health services for people with ID and autism, as well as for people who have mental health challenges.
- Be able to identify the common barriers to accessing care, including stigma related to disability and mental health challenges and the fact that the healthcare workforce is not adequate to meet the needs equitably across the globe.
- Learn about the importance of good mental health as part of overall health – mental and physical are interconnected.
We recommend reading the following articles prior to the event:
- Joint United Nations Statement on ending discrimination in health care settings – https://www.who.int/news/item/27-06-2017-joint-united-nations-statement-on-ending-discrimination-in-health-care-settings#:~:text=States%20have%20an%20immediate%20legal,discrimination%20in%20health%20care%20settings.
- Doherty, A. J., Atherton, H., Boland, P., Hastings, R., Hives, L., Hood, K., … & Chauhan, U. (2020). Barriers and facilitators to primary health care for people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism: an integrative review. BJGP open, 4(3).
- Krahn, G. L., & Fox, M. H. (2014). Health disparities of adults with intellectual disabilities: what do we know? What do we do?. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 27(5), 431-446.
- Olusanya, B. O., Wright, S. M., Nair, M. K. C., Boo, N. Y., Halpern, R., Kuper, H., … & Global Research on Developmental Disabilities Collaborators. (2020). Global burden of childhood epilepsy, intellectual disability, and sensory impairments. Pediatrics, 146(1).
- Stadnick, N. A., Martinez, K., Aarons, G. A., Lee, D. A., Van Cleave, J., & Brookman-Frazee, L. (2020). Pediatric primary care perspectives on integrated mental health care for autism. Academic pediatrics, 20(8), 1140-1147.
- Salvador-Carulla, L., Martínez-Leal, R., Heyler, C., Alvarez-Galvez, J., Veenstra, M. Y., García-Ibáñez, J., … & Van Schrojenstein Lantman-de Valk, H. M. (2015). Training on intellectual disability in health sciences: the European perspective. International journal of developmental disabilities, 61(1), 20-31.
- Navas, P., Amor, A. M., Crespo, M., Wolowiec, Z., & Verdugo, M. Á. (2021). Supports for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic from their own perspective. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 108, 103813.
- Patel, D. R., Cabral, M. D., Ho, A., & Merrick, J. (2020). A clinical primer on intellectual disability. Translational pediatrics, 9(Suppl 1), S23.
