Greg Simon, MD, MPH, is a psychiatrist and senior investigator who is well-known for extensive research on practical approaches to improving mental health care. His longtime goal has been to develop and evaluate effective real-world strategies that support better mental health, such as providing care management support by phone and online. Recently, his work expanded to include a focus on preventing suicide.

Dr. Simon leads the Mental Health Research Network (MHRN), a consortium of research centers affiliated with 13 large health systems across the United States. This network, funded through a cooperative agreement with the National Institute of Mental Health, aims to improve the efficiency, relevance, and impact of mental health clinical and health services research. Now in its second five-year funding cycle, the MHRN is exploring a broad range of issues—including using mobile devices for mental health clinical assessments, improving heart health in people with serious mental illness, using electronic medical records to improve follow-up care for depression, and understanding the causes of racial and ethnic disparities in mental health care.

Drawing on his extensive experience in the MHRN, Dr. Simon recently launched a project to support a more individualized approach to depression treatment called “feedback-informed care.” Funded by the Kaiser Permanente Sidney Garfield Memorial Fund, the project will create the largest data resource on depression care ever available—and then use that data to tailor depression care based on patient characteristics.

Dr. Simon’s work on suicide prevention gained steam in 2013 when he and colleagues showed that routinely administered depression outcome questionnaires can identify people at increased risk for suicide attempt. With funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory, Dr. Simon is leading a large randomized trial to determine whether population-based outreach programs can reduce risk of suicide attempt in people identified by those questionnaires. This research will test two suicide-prevention interventions: an outreach and care management program (delivered online and by phone) and an online psycho-educational program focused on development of emotion regulation skills.

Dr. Simon is an editor for the Cochrane Collaboration’s depression and anxiety review group and sits on the editorial boards for General Hospital Psychiatry and Psychiatric Services. He also chairs the scientific advisory board for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. Dr. Simon has practiced adult psychiatry in Kaiser Permanente Washington's Behavioral Health Service since 1990 and holds an appointment as a research professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington.