Neurobehavioral Health: Psychiatry Consult and Liaison Service
The Hoag psychiatry liaison service supports the various multidisciplinary
medical teams throughout the hospital with on-sight consultation and the
psychiatric resources necessary to enhance identification and intervention
of neurobehavioral disorders. The psychiatric liaison service improves
care, as well as patient and physician satisfaction by attending to the
often complex neurobehavioral elements of a patient’s presenting
medical problem. The Hoag psychiatry liaison service has increased value
in the continuum of hospital care by lowering the costs associatedwith
Emergency Department visits, shortening lengths of hospital stay and focusing
on decreasingre-admissions.
Renee Garcia, M.D. leads Hoag’s Consult and Liaison Services. Dr.
Garcia is board certified in Psychiatry with a subspecialty in psychosomatic
medicine. Dr. Garcia completed her medical education at Loma Linda University,
School of Medicine where she first fell in love with her medical specialty,
psychiatry. She then went on to complete general psychiatry residency
training program at University of Southern California. During her time
at USC, she developed professional interests in emergency room (ER) psychiatry
and psychosomatic medicine, which is working with patients that have complex
medical and psychiatric illnesses. She chose to further her expertise
in working directly with the medically ill and serving as a consultant
to other medical disciplines in an acute care setting, so then transitioned
to Stanford University where she completed her psychosomatic medicine
fellowship. She remains adjunct faculty at Stanford on the psychosomatic
medicine service and is now further developing Hoag’s psychiatry
consult service to both the medical center and emergency room as the new director.
