Embedding Crisis Workers In Hospital ED Speeds Psychiatric Diagnosis, Treatment

About the Program

Category: Human Services (Best in Category)

Year: 2018

Sutter-Yuba Behavioral Health Services (a two-county Joint Powers Authority, with Sutter County, CA, as the employer of record), has embedded mental health crisis staff fulltime in the region’s only emergency department in a partnership with the hospital that has reduced the amount of time patients in psychiatric crisis wait to be diagnosed, and either released or hospitalized for treatment. The program has won statewide awards and national attention as a new best practice for responding to the growing number of patients in psychiatric distress being treated in emergency rooms. According to Agency for Healthcare Research, in 2014, an estimated 43.6 million U.S. adults experienced a mental, behavioral, or emotional disorders, representing just more than 18 percent of all U.S. adults. . One in every 8 emergency room visits nationwide is for a mental health or substance abuse issue. In Yuba and Sutter counties, the only ER is located at Adventist Health/Rideout Regional Medical Center. In 2015 and 2016, the ER was experiencing a 75 percent increase in the admission of patients placed on California Welfare and Institutions Code 5150 “psychiatric holds”, a shortage of psychiatric hospitals equipped to treat the patients, concerns over workplace violence, and rising costs. The County's 16-bed psychiatric hospital was beyond capacity and patient care was suffering. County mental health crisis workers who used to be dispatched each time someone in psychiatric crisis entered the ER are now assigned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, speeding initial evaluation. In addition, Rideout employs the use of tele-medicine to connect patients to psychiatrists. Dramatic reductions in time for diagnosis and treatment, fewer hospitalizations, and a safer work environment have all resulted.