Profile: Professor Mike Klinkman Chair, WONCA International Classification Committee
Prof Michael Klinkman MD MS, is a Michigan native who has spent most of his life serving the people of his home state. He is first and foremost a practicing family physician, with an active part-time practice in Ann Arbor where he has served his patients for over 20 years.
Prof Klinkman is professor in the Department of Family Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School. His academic efforts at Michigan have been focused on health information technology, mental health care in the primary care setting, and practice-based research. He has been part of the University of Michigan Depression Center leadership team since its inception, and has led several of the Center’s primary care initiatives over the past 10 years. In his former role as Associate Director of the University of Michigan Medical Management Center, he led development of the U-M Depression Disease Management Program, the first JCAHO-accredited depression disease management program in the nation. In the Department of Family Medicine, he co-led the development of Cielo Clinic, an ICPC-based clinical quality management software application now used by over 800 primary care clinicians in several health systems across the United States. He recently served as Chair of the joint AHRQ/NIMH Technical Expert Panel on Mental Health Information Technology.
Prof Klinkman has led or co-led several large studies of mental health care in the primary care setting. The long-term Depression in Primary Care initiative developed a model depression support program (M-DOCC) supported by a case management software application, and confirmed its effectiveness in supporting primary care practices in providing mental health care. His work is now focused on integrating mental health care into the Patient-Centered Medical Home and creating sustainable practice change through community-academic partnerships. He co-founded the Greater Flint Depression in Primary Care Partnership and the Jackson Community Partnership, both aimed at improving mental health care in real-world practice settings.
He has been a member of the WONCA International Classification Committee (WICC) since 1993, serving as its Chair, since 2007. In this role, he has led efforts to transform the work of the Committee, to revise ICPC, and to develop new classification tools for use in the primary care. Under his leadership, WICC has developed formal collaborative relationships with other international organizations involved in classification and terminology, and he now serves as the primary care classification liaison to the World Health Organization.