SPOKANE, Wash. — Michael Hendryx has been named director of the Washington Institute for Mental Illness Research and Training, Eastern Branch, at Washington State University Spokane. Hendryx, an associate professor of health policy and administration and associate professor of psychology, previously served as assistant director for WIMIRT.
Hendryx received a doctorate in psychology from Northwestern University in 1986 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in methodology at the University of Chicago. He was an assistant professor at the University of Iowa from 1990-94 before coming to WSU.
His research interests include studies of mental health services and outcomes and studies of social capital as it relates to the functioning of health care systems.
Hendryx is recognized as a national leader on the issue of risk adjustment, which allows policy-makers and health care professionals to evaluate cost-effectiveness and benefits to patients, given their varying diagnoses and treatments. He is the author of the seminal piece on the topic, published in 1999 in the top journal for the field, “Health Services Research.” He served as the invited guest editor for a special issue of the “Journal of Behavioral Health Services and Research,” focused on mental health risk adjustment in 2001, and is a reviewer for a number of journals.
Hendryx succeeds Dennis Dyck, now associate dean for research at WSU Spokane. WIMIRT has received approximately $14 million in funding to date for its research and training initiatives. According to Hendryx, the institute’s work is focusing on performance measurement, evidence-based care and treatment for co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse.
