Sara Weelborg, ARNP is an adult psychiatric nurse practitioner in private practice in University Place. She also contracts with the Squaxin Island Health Clinic to provide psychiatric medication management via telemedicine and onsite medication management for the Northwest Indian Treatment Center. She is currently completing her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree at Boise State University; she received her master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and her post-master’s certificate at Rush University. She is a US Navy Nurse Corps retiree and has worked as a psychiatric nurse practitioner for 17 years in various settings.
Believing that patients can be well-served by receiving their mental health care within their familiar primary care practice setting, she is interested in incorporating the Collaborative Care Model into her current practice. She feels strongly that integrated care can help reduce stigma and improve access to timely mental health intervention. She hopes that participation in the fellowship will help her incorporate the Collaborative Care Model into her current practice so she can help improve access to care in her community and partner with primary care staff to share knowledge and experience to support their delivery of mental health services.
She hopes that five years from now, Collaborative Care/integrated care will be a common care delivery model in primary care practices rather than a novel idea.