IHI’s Improvement Blog: Building Trust to Address Behavioral Health Needs in the Emergency Department

Radloff was hired in a new role: as an ED LMHC/Care Coordinator. He sits at the front of the nursing station facing the entrance to the ED, and he is charged with doing whatever he can to make sure behavioral health patients get what they need. As Radloff describes it, when patients arrive, he will “talk with them, get a sense of what’s going on with them, get telepsychiatry involved.” Since his role was brand-new when he started, it was something of an experiment to see exactly what it would entail. He started the job shortly before SSEM joined the ED & Upstream (ED & UP) Learning Community. Convened by IHI in partnership with Well Being Trust, the ED & UP Learning Community was a collection of health care teams working to improve patient outcomes, experience of care, and staff safety while also decreasing avoidable, repeat visits to the ED for individuals with mental health and substance abuse issues.
Read the full article here.