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A Comprehensive Crisis System: Ending Unnecessary Emergency Room Admissions and Jail Bookings Associated with Mental Illness

Source: National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors

Resource Type: Documents and Publications

Topics: Crisis Response System, MHSA, Program Funding, Psychiatric or Mental Health Stabilization

This paper represents a call to divert healthcare spending away from the more expensive traditional approaches of emergency department assessment followed by a referral to acute inpatient hospital services to a full continuum that includes less expensive specialized crisis services and accessibility of vital psychiatric inpatient resources. The essential crisis services that will be defined within this paper are (1) regional or statewide crisis call centers coordinating in real time, (2) centrally deployed, 24/7 mobile crisis response teams and (3) short-term, “sub-acute” residential crisis stabilization programs. This paper will serve as a roadmap on how to fund and implement a comprehensive crisis system in your community that will lower the overall cost of healthcare and dramatically reduce the time law enforcement spends engaged in addressing mental health crisis while positively impacting public safety and overall health through enhanced access to needed services.