Disease Management Association Of America Announces Major Depression Summit

WASHINGTON, April 12 /PRNewswire/ -- The Disease Management Association of America (DMAA) announced today that it has convened a faculty of 60+ national thought leaders from both the medical and behavioral sectors of science, medicine and health care to help explore how to re-invent our healthcare delivery system to better manage Depression, the "Cancer of the 21st Century" [World Health Organization 2003]. The Integrated Healthcare Leadership Summit: Co-Morbid Depression & Chronic Illness (http://www.dmaa.org/2004depressionconference) will be held June 7-8, 2004 at the JW Marriott in Washington, DC.

Co-Chair Ron Kessler, PhD noted, "Our healthcare community is finally coming to recognize the enormous financial and broader human costs of creating an artificial separation of physical and mental health care."

Adds Kurt Kroenke, MD, Co-Chair of the Summit, "We hope that this truly inter-disciplinary leadership Summit will serve as a catalyst to better integrate our policy and reimbursement infrastructures and attitudes on depression to the benefit of our patients and to help better manage our escalating healthcare expenditures and worker productivity issues."

"We are privileged to have Drs. Kessler and Kroenke serve as co-chairs of this important Summit. They have assembled a stellar faculty of academic and clinical leaders whose innovative programs and ideas will help close the gap between 'where we should be' and 'where we ARE today' concerning the identification and improved management of depression," says DMAA President, Sam Nussbaum, MD. The entire program, registration information, exhibitor/sponsorship details can be seen at http://www.dmaa.org/.

Based in Washington, D.C., the Disease Management Association of America is a non-profit, voluntary membership organization, founded in March of 1999, which represents all aspects of the disease management community. For more information, please visit http://www.dmaa.org/.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030114/DCTU013LOGO )

CONTACT: Warren Todd of the Disease Management Association of America,+1-202-861-1491, or wtodd@DMAA.org

Web site: http://www.dmaa.org/http://www.dmaa.org/2004depressionconference