{"id":916,"date":"2020-09-04T09:28:43","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T14:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/psychiatry\/?p=916"},"modified":"2026-02-09T08:33:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:33:36","slug":"unmc-psychiatrists-split-time-with-community-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/psychiatry\/2020\/09\/04\/unmc-psychiatrists-split-time-with-community-alliance\/","title":{"rendered":"UNMC Psychiatrists split time with Community Alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"panel intruder-image\">\n\t<div class=\"panel__container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"feature__media feature__media--full\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"feature__image\">\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/psychiatry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2020\/09\/ACT-Team.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Riley Machal and Dr. Melissa O&#039;Dell\"\/>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"feature__caption feature__caption--line\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<p>Dr. Riley Machal and Dr. Melissa O&#039;Dell are part of the UNMC Assertive Community Treatment team and the two doctors have been sharing clinical time at Community Alliance<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n\n\n<p>UNMC psychiatrists Riley Machal, MD, and Melissa O\u2019Dell, MD spend much of their clinical time with the ACT team at Community Alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Community Alliance is a mental health agency which offers a wide array of services geared toward helping adults with serious mental illness thrive in the community, including Omaha\u2019s only ACT team. ACT (Assertive Community Treatment) is an interdisciplinary, team-based\u00a0model of care for adults with serious mental illness, and often co-occurring substance use disorders,\u00a0whose needs\u00a0cannot be met in traditional outpatient care settings.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn ACT we place a strong emphasis on recovery-oriented, strengths-based and person-centered approaches to care.&nbsp;As a team we interact with our clients multiple times per week in a variety of community settings.\u201d Dr. O\u2019Dell explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following the January 16, 2020 death of Community Alliance full-time Psychiatrist Nathan Bruce, DO, Dr. O\u2019Dell was asked to fill his vacancy as the ACT team psychiatrist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAnyone who knew&nbsp;Dr. Bruce&nbsp;will tell you&nbsp;his shoes are impossible to fill, but&nbsp;having had&nbsp;the&nbsp;benefit of working&nbsp;under&nbsp;his supervision at ACT&nbsp;for two years,&nbsp;I was better&nbsp;prepared than most to step into the role,\u201d said Dr. O\u2019Dell. \u201cFor the first few months, with the team and our patients acutely grieving Dr. Bruce&#8217;s loss,&nbsp;me only being able to devote two days a week to what is really a full-time position, and then&nbsp;the onset of the coronavirus pandemic forcing us to throw everything we do into a new risk-benefit calculator, it&nbsp;was an uphill battle for&nbsp;the team to regain its footing&nbsp;and get back to providing&nbsp;the high level of care&nbsp;our clients&nbsp;need and deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In August, Dr. Machal joined UNMC and the ACT team. Dr. O\u2019Dell she was thrilled to have Dr. Machal join the team. Dr. Machal said it was an easy decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Drs. O\u2019Dell and Machal share clinical duties, which&nbsp;include seeing patients (sometimes in their homes), providing education and support to the team, crisis intervention, overseeing the treatment planning process, and supervising residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cACT is the most intensive treatment patients can receive while out of a hospital or partial hospitalization setting,\u201d Dr. Machal said. \u201cHaving an ACT team available in Omaha allows for more people to stay healthy with fewer hospitalizations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. O\u2019Dell said she\u2019s excited to welcome several new Creighton residents to the team: Dr. Rebecca Leval, Dr. Amanda Emmert, Dr. Ruben Solis, Dr. Geoffrey Allison, and appreciates the continued dedication of&nbsp;Dr. Rocky Esteraich, PGY-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UNMC psychiatrists Riley Machal, MD, and Melissa O\u2019Dell, MD spend much of their clinical time with the ACT team at Community Alliance. Community Alliance is a mental health agency which offers a wide array of services geared toward helping adults with serious mental illness thrive in the community, including Omaha\u2019s only ACT team. ACT (Assertive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":574,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>UNMC Psychiatrists split time with Community Alliance<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/psychiatry\/2020\/09\/04\/unmc-psychiatrists-split-time-with-community-alliance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UNMC Psychiatrists split time with Community Alliance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"UNMC psychiatrists Riley Machal, MD, and Melissa O\u2019Dell, MD spend much of their clinical time with the ACT team at Community Alliance. 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