Triage Engagement and Support Teams (TEST)

About the Program

Category: Human Services (Best in Category)

Year: 2016

In 2015, San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) formed the Triage Engagement and Support Teams (TEST) to enhance access to the outpatient continuum of care for underserved communities. Triage Teams are placed in critical entry points where persons in crisis traditionally enter the criminal justice or inpatient hospital systems. The goal is to provide an alternative to consumers in psychiatric crisis who may have traditionally been hospitalized or incarcerated. TEST staff, coordinate care by providing referrals and warm handoffs to community-based services in order to support the consumer on their road to recovery and rehabilitation. In the first nine of the planned 17 sites, TEST has reduced unnecessary expenditures for law enforcement and hospitals by diverting 76% of crisis intervention encounters from hospitalization. TEST has further saved law enforcement resources by providing transportation to the hospital and accompanying the consumer during their hospital admission process in crisis intervention encounters that could not be diverted. The support provided by TEST, both to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations or incarcerations and after a client’s release when hospitalization or incarceration cannot be avoided, enables consumers to break cycles of intense distress and crises by replacing them with ongoing engagement in the outpatient continuum of care.