Hello All,
I work in a regional facility with a busy ED seeing mental health cleints daily. We have the state facility within minutes and the Emergency Clinicians will send pateints to the State Hospital on an Involuntary Emergency Admission (IEA) when they do not meet criteria for our 15 bed voluntary unit. The State is making major financial cuts that adversly affect the mentally ill, including closing 50 beds at the state hospital. The first week this occured (2 weeks ago) we had 3 patients awaiting a bed at the State hospital and remained in Behavioral pod of the ED for up to 3 days! We have never had this occur before and anticipate it will happen more often. The rooms are not even equiped with a bed, we put a mattress on the floor.
Does anyone have mental health patients remain in the ED greater than 24h?? If so, is the area managed by an RN and/or security? How do you manage payment, as the cleint is only charged for 74 minutes in the ED. If they move to inpatient status, who admits them and what medical diagosis is used for reinbursement?
This is new territory, so any information you can share would be most helpful- Thank you.
Camille Kennedy MSN, RNBC
Director of Behavioral Health Services
Concord Hospital
Concord, NH 03220