If nurses, physicians, and healthcare planners knew more about patients' health-related preferences, care would most likely be cheaper, more effective, and closer to the individuals' desires. For patient preferences to be effectively used in health care delivery, it is essential that patients be able to formulate and express preferences, that these judgments be made known to the decision-makers, and that these statements meaningfully inform care activities. Conjoint analysis is a rigorous method of eliciting patient preferences to improve healthcare services. It allows estimation of the relative importance of different aspects of care, the trade-offs between them, and the total satisfaction or utility that respondents derive from healthcare services. Conducting conjoint analysis research allows us to identify and prioritize important service features for healthcare providers to consider. These studies point to service features that are insignificant to patients, inform effective health messaging, and segment patient population based on their individual preferences to provide tailored service. This presentation will discuss the application of preference-based research, such as conjoint analysis, in improving healthcare delivery.

This presentation will cover the specific elements of the Trauma Resiliency Model as a therapeutic approach to treat acute as well as chronic trauma symptoms in clinical practice. The discussion will cover the biological model of the stress response, case conceptualization, treatment, and outcomes.

Behavioral Health Integration is a growing trend with new practices and empirical evidences. Loma Linda Unviersity has partnered with the Medicial Center hospital, ambulatory, and specialty sites in mulitple ways to pilot numerous versions of behavioral health integration. These collaberative sites have been in practice for over two years. This presentation will present the current empirical evidence to date as well as report the local pilot activitites. The presentation will also present the outcome data as well as lessons learned from our local pilot studies.

Despite decades of research, the neurobiological basis of schizophrenia remains elusive. Extrapolating connections between disparate levels of analysis may provide a more comprehensive understanding of at least some aspects of this complex disorder. Electroencephalography (EEG) is one way to measure aspects of brain functioning that could be helpful when learning about different psychiatric disorders. The auditory steady state response (ASSR) is an EEG measure of neural synchrony and oscillation that has been extensively studied in this population and may represent a potential biomarker of schizophrenia. Moreover, the ASSR can be recorded in rodent and non-human primate models. At the cellular level, the ASSR is thought to rely on the interaction between excitatory glutamatergic and inhibitory GABA systems via the NMDA receptor, which may be disrupted in individuals with schizophrenia. Coordinated neural firing, as measured by EEG, is also likely impacted by higher levels of neuroinflammation found in different stages of the disorder. On a behavioral level, neural oscillations within the gamma (40 Hz) frequency range have been associated with sensory and cognitive functioning, both of which are also disrupted in individuals with schizophrenia. Intriguing rodent studies have shown that gamma range stimulation may have lasting neurophysiological impacts. Therefore, the ASSR is a cross-species paradigm that allows us to probe basic neural network alterations that may be responsible for some of the cognitive and perceptual symptoms found in those with schizophrenia.