EXCOM Member

Karen R. Stewart, MD, is Chief of Behavioral Health at The Southeast Permanente Medical Group, the medical group serving members of Kaiser Permanente’s Georgia region. In this role she leads behavioral health care delivery across a network of outpatient, inpatient, crisis, and consult-liaison sites. Under her leadership, the region has standardized suicide risk identification and care practices across its clinical sites, aligning with the Zero Suicide framework to build a consistent, systemwide approach to suicide prevention. She also serves as National Clinical Lead for Collaborative Care Management at Kaiser Permanente, accelerating the integration of behavioral health into primary care nationally — work that extends suicide prevention into the settings where most at-risk patients are first seen. 

Dr. Stewart is a board-certified adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist. She completed her psychiatry residency and child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at Emory University and holds an undergraduate degree from Spelman College. She previously served on the boards of Morehouse School of Medicine and the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association and speaks and writes on behavioral health topics for national and regional audiences.