Itai Danovitch, MD, MBA, DFAPA, DFASAM
Candidate for Regional Director
Region II - California
Itai Danovitch, MD, MBA, DFAPA, DFASAM. I am an academic addiction psychiatrist. I serve as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
I earned my bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley and my medical doctorate from UCLA. I completed my psychiatry residency at Columbia, an addiction psychiatry fellowship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and a Master of Business Administration at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Before my current role, I served as Director of Addiction Psychiatry and the Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship at Cedars-Sinai.
My research is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). I have authored over 80 articles and chapters and co-edited two books: Addiction—Psychiatric Clinics of North America and The Assessment and Treatment of Addiction—Best Practices and New Frontiers.
I am a Distinguished Fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. In 2016, I was appointed by the Governor of California to serve as a Commissioner on the State Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission. I live in Los Angeles with my wife and three kids, with whom I aim to go hiking or backpacking in the Sierras every chance I get.
Candidate Questionnaire Responses
1. What have been your greatest contributions to ASAM or to the field of addiction medicine over the last 10 years?
Throughout my career, I've had the honor of serving ASAM in various capacities. At the national level, I've contributed to the ASAM Board, Criteria Strategy Committee, Quality Improvement Committee, and Annual Conference Planning Committee. In California, I've served as President of the California Society of Addiction Medicine (CSAM) and on its Board of Directors, as well as on the Public Policy, Communications, 麻豆区, and Integration and Access to Systems of Care Committees. My advocacy for addiction medicine has extended to other professional associations, notably the Academy of Consultation Liaison Psychiatry (ACLP) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA).
In these roles, my focus has been on improving affordability, accessibility, and quality of treatment for substance use disorders. As Chairman of Psychiatry at Cedars-Sinai, I've led initiatives to integrate addiction treatment services into hospital settings and spearheaded system-wide efforts to enhance screening, assessment, and interventions for patients with substance use disorders. Currently, I'm analyzing results from a recently completed randomized controlled trial that demonstrates the effectiveness of a hospital-based addiction service on clinical outcomes for patients with opioid use disorders.
In 2016, Governor Jerry Brown appointed me as a physician expert on substance use disorders for the California Mental Health Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC). This commission oversees approximately one-third of public mental health expenditures in California. In this role, I've worked to increase resource allocation for patients with substance use disorders (including passing legislation to enable MHSA funds to be applied for SUD initiatives), integrate medical and behavioral health care, support recovery and resiliency, eliminate disparities, and identify meaningful outcome measures to demonstrate and drive improvements for individuals living with addiction and behavioral health challenges.
Finally, my first job was as associate director of an addiction psychiatry fellowship program. Each and every time I meet the residents and fellows that graduated from that program and hear and see about their contributions to our field, I feel gratitude and pride for the role I played in their careers.
2. How would your election to the ASAM Board of Directors benefit ASAM and the field of addiction medicine?
If elected, I would bring to ASAM my unwavering dedication to our organization's mission and values, coupled with extensive experience addressing the practical challenges we face. These include disseminating the ASAM Criteria, improving reimbursement for addiction services, enhancing addiction education across medical training, facilitating the integration of research findings and best practices, and overcoming the financial and regulatory barriers that impede patient access to essential care.
As a former president of one of our largest state chapters, I understand the critical need to foster vibrant regional networks that attract and develop physician leaders, effectively advocate for state-level addiction policy reform, and serve as local hubs of addiction expertise. Concurrently, we require a robust national organization that can harness the strengths of our chapters, align common initiatives across our enterprise, leverage relationships with key national entities to influence federal drug policy, compel health plans to appropriately recognize and reimburse evidence-based addiction services, and set the gold standard for exceptional addiction care delivery.
We find ourselves at a pivotal moment in our field, amid unprecedented changes in healthcare and heightened awareness of addiction's impact. My goal is to maintain our focus on our core mission, drawing from my personal experience in patient care, education, and research. I am committed to ensuring that we actively listen to and respond to the ideas and needs of our members, driving ASAM forward as a leader in addiction medicine.