Robert F. Cole, PhD
Assistant Professor

Dr. Cole is a seasoned administrator of health and human services programs with particular experience relevant to the integration of behavioral health care services for children and families. In the mid-1970s he directed the implementation of Title XX of the Social Security Act in nine Massachusetts health and human services agencies where he was confronted the issues of services integration as well as with broad public concern over the federally mandated automation of personal health records. In the decade of the 1980s he managed mental health and mental retardation services for a fourteen town catchment area west of Boston. In the 1990s he managed a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation national program for children's mental health care. This program demonstrated several models of systematic integration of intensive care services for children with severe disabilities and their families as well as financing models that blended funds from as many as five categorical agencies and lead to the development of a SAMHSA funded National technical assistance center that supported large federal grants to states and localities to create coherent and integrated systems of care for children and their families. In the mid-1990s at the Washington Business Group on Health, he served as the Director of Health and Productivity Management, working with WBGH member (Fortune 500) companies on the measurement of health outcomes, and representing WGBH in planning Jackson Hole activities to increase health care system accountability. Dr. Cole is engaged in developing appropriate public sector training opportunities for the residency program and teaches a full year seminar on Contemporary Health Systems to the fourth year Residents.