Dr. Margie Balfour is a psychiatrist and nationally recognized leader in behavioral health crisis care, quality improvement, outcomes measurement, and law-enforcement responses to behavioral health emergencies. She is the founder of MultiPass Consulting, where she partners with communities and organizations across the country to design, strengthen, and scale behavioral health crisis systems.

Previously, Dr. Balfour served as Chief of Quality & Clinical Innovation at Connections Health Solutions, where she led the transformation of the Tucson Crisis Response Center into the centerpiece of a nationally recognized crisis system and played a key role in the organization’s expansion into multiple states. She currently serves in a part-time Executive Policy Advisor role at Connections Health Solutions.

Dr. Balfour is a national thought leader in behavioral health crisis system design. She co-authored the National Council for Mental Wellbeing’s Roadmap to the Ideal Crisis System and was a key contributor to SAMHSA’s national crisis service definitions and guidelines. She is also an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona, where her work focuses on advancing evidence-informed crisis care models and evaluating their impact on outcomes and system-level costs.

A sought-after speaker and advisor, Dr. Balfour serves on the NAMI Scientific Advisory Council and has participated on expert panels and advisory boards for federal agencies, managed care organizations, regulatory bodies, professional associations, and advocacy groups.

Originally from Monroe, Louisiana, Dr. Balfour earned a BA in Biology from Johns Hopkins University and an MD and PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Cincinnati. She completed residency and fellowship training in Community Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.