Dr. Virna Little is a distinguished leader in behavioral health. She is the Co-Founder of Concert Health, a behavioral health medical group that provides Collaborative Care to healthcare organizations across 21 states and has served over 150,000 patients. Dr. Little is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zero Overdose, a national non-profit seeking to eliminate unintentional overdose events and deaths through overdose safety planning. Dr. Little is also the leader of SPiER, an international effort to improve suicide care and reduce suicide events and deaths through optimizing technology, such as electronic health records and health information exchanges.

Dr. Little has served as faculty for the national Zero Suicide team. Dr. Little is known for her work integrating primary care and behavioral health and has helped implement and advance care across all 50 states. She has served as a consultant with nationally recognized groups such as the AIMS center, National Council for Mental Well Being and Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute. A nationally and internationally recognized speaker , Dr. Little has presented at the White House along with other distinguished venues. She has received numerous awards including two lifetime achievement awards from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing and the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved. Dr. Little has served on numerous boards, in the role of board chair, elected member and advisor. She has published over a dozen peer reviewed articles along with other reports and briefs. Dr. Little holds a doctoral degree in psychology and a masters in social work.

Nicole Portrude joined the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute with over five years of experience implementing Collaborative Care programs in health systems across the United States. Prior to joining the Meadows Institute, Nicole served as a Behavioral Health Care Manager (BHCM), managed a team of BHCMs, and led Collaborative Care initiatives across multiple states. In her role at the Meadows Institute, Nicole leads Collaborative Care Model implementations to ensure improved access to evidence-based mental health care as well as partner satisfaction. She is passionate about championing healthcare transformation to promote community access to care and reducing health disparities.

Nicole has a License in Clinical Psychology from the Universidad Del Desarrollo of Santiago Chile. She currently resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her partner, two cats, and dog. When she is not working to increase access to care, you can find her reading a book or sticking her hand in some soil trying to bring life to her garden.

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