MIRECC / CoE

Highlights from Our Anchor Sites

Our affiliates in Houston, Little Rock, and New Orleans work hard to promote mental health education, research, and treatment locally and nationally. Here are some highlights of their accomplishments over the past three months.

Houston

Affiliates Serve on AI in Health Conference Committees

Drs. Amber (Amy) Amspoker, Julianna Hogan, and Jan Lindsay served as program and organizing committee members for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Health conference in September 2025. The conference facilitates discussions with researchers, clinicians, and engineers utilizing artificial intelligence to influence real-world health outcomes and improve patient care. The program explored the current landscape of artificial intelligence in health and presented a research-driven outlook for the future of computational health innovation, highlighting advancements in robotics and healthcare, AI for modern therapeutics, and AI for clinical research.

Dr. Alexandra (Ali) Caloudas Presents on App and Delivers Workshop

Kudos to Dr. Caloudas for presenting the Veterans Wellness Path mobile mental health application (“app”), to 180 VA staff members during VA’s Tech into Care Community of Practice call along with Ms. Cindy Goss (project lead) and Dr. Shannon McCaslin. The app, which was developed with and for rural Native Veterans, represents a collaboration between SC MIRECC investigators, investigators at the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health, and VA’s National Center for PTSD Mobile Apps Team.

Dr. Caloudas and Asya Brodsky delivered an intensive workshop on addressing Veterans’ sexual health concerns for 27 VA clinicians, sponsored by the SC MIRECC. The presentation, "Addressing Needs of Rural Veterans and Veterans Facing Barriers to Care: A Holistic Approach to Treating Veteran Sexual Concerns," focused on improving rural Veterans’ access to evidence-based support for sexual difficulties.

New Orleans

Dr. Joseph (Jay) Boffa Attends NIH Summer Institute

Dr. Boffa was selected to attend the 2025 NIH Summer Institute for Randomized Behavioral Intervention Trials in Madison, Wisconsin. The Summer Institute is a competitive program for basic and behavioral early career scientists where they learn to develop early-stage interventions that will translate to improving public health. Dr. Boffa participated to further a psychological intervention for suicide prevention, which is the focus of his current CDA-2 award funded by VA Clinical Science Research and Development.

Affiliates Publish PTSD Care Article

Drs. C. Laurel Franklin (Harlin), Amanda Raines, Chelsea Ennis, Joseph (Jay) Boffa, Mara Ferrie, and Mary Shapiro published “Evaluating coordination and quality of care among Veterans receiving posttraumatic stress disorder care in the community” in the Journal of Traumatic Stress. Their findings highlight gaps in the coordination and quality of care, particularly as it relates to VA standards, for Veterans receiving PTSD care in the community.

Dr. Gala True Publishes Caregivers and Firearm Suicide Prevention Article

Dr. True published “Opportunities and barriers to engaging caregivers in firearm suicide prevention: Findings from focus groups with caregivers of Veterans” in Injury Epidemiology. Findings showed that providing additional training for healthcare providers and ensuring availability of caregiver-focused lethal means safety resources could be key to increasing caregiver involvement in lethal means safety planning and improving caregivers’ role in reducing access to firearms for Veterans at risk of dying by suicide.

All Sites

Affiliates Receive Office of Rural Health Funding

Congratulations to the affiliates listed below for receiving Office of Rural Health (ORH) funding for FY26:

• Dr. Kelley Arredondo: An Evaluation of the VHA Registered Nurse Transition to Practice Residency Program at Rural Sites
• Dr. Kelley Arredondo: Recruiting and Retaining Rural Registered Nurses
• Dr. Derrecka Boykin: Courage Group Implementation and Scaling
• Dr. Alexandra (Ali) Caloudas: Leveraging Virtual Care and Clinical Partnerships to Engage Rural Veterans in VA Mental Health Care
• Dr. Jeff Cully: Increasing Rural Veteran Access to Brief Evidence-Based Psychotherapies
• Dr. Jeff Cully: Brief Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression: Creating Practice-Ready Materials for Rural Spanish Speaking Veterans
• Dr. Jeff Cully: Secure Firearm Storage Kit Program
• Dr. Lilian Dindo: Engaging Out-of-Care Distressed Veterans and their Partners in Outreach and an ACT-Based Intervention
• Dr. Terri Fletcher: VHA Provider Training in Exposure and Response Prevention for Rural Veterans with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Dr. Jenny Freytag: Advancing Virtual Care Access for Older Rural Veterans
• Dr. Kathleen (Katy) Grubbs: Rural Veterans and Community Mental Health Care: How, Why, and Ways VA Can Become the Preferred Provider
• Dr. Julianna Hogan: Digital Mental Health Clinics for Rural Capacity Building
• Dr. Julianna Hogan: Rural Health Tech Pilot Intervention: Leveraging Patient Generated Health Data for Better Outcomes and Sustainable Practice
• Dr. Jan Lindsay: Personalized Implementation of Virtual Treatments for Rural Veterans (PIVOT-R)
• Dr. Jan Lindsay: Increasing Access to Mental Health Care for Rural Veterans Living with Serious Mental Illness
• Dr. Hillary Touchett: Improving Access to Mental Healthcare for Rural Veterans with Spinal Cord Injury
• Dr. Gala True: Facilitating Lethal Means Safety Conversations with Rural Caregivers
• Dr. Gala True: The Armory Demonstration Project
• Dr. Marcela (Marci) Weber: Enhancing Access and Engagement of Mental Health Care for Rural Native Veterans

Last updated: October 22, 2025