Joseph Tomsic, ARNP is a Board Certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Nurse Executive Advanced working in the south Puget Sound area. He has advanced degrees in Nursing from the University of Washington and Health Policy & Administration from Washington State University. He is a retried United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and Chief Nurse.
His initial mental health experience was in 1995 as a United States Navy Nurse Corps Officer (BSN, RN) and certified psychiatric nurse working on an inpatient mental health unit. Since then, his professional experience includes caring for military and civilian psychiatric patients in inpatient and outpatient settings. He transitioned from nursing leadership to the psychiatric nurse practitioner role in 2012. He works for the MultiCare Behavioral Health Network as an Outpatient Medical Director.
He enjoys living in the Pacific Northwest and just about any outdoor activity. He was born in Chicago but has lived in Washington State since 1976. He considers the Sumner/Puyallup Valley home. He is married and has three adult children.
Through participation in the fellowship program he hopes to gain advanced knowledge of integrated care to help expand access for community members to specialty psychiatric consultation. He would like to help the care team treat members of the community with mental health conditions within the primary care setting. He believes early intervention in primary care could help patients achieve and maintain recovery without the need for scarce community mental health psychiatric specialty care resources. He hopes that early access to specialty psychiatric consultation will help the care team avoid and/or better identify acute risk situations to reverse the multiyear trend of increasing suicide rates.