With Emergency Department (ED) visits related to mental health and substance abuse on the rise in recent years, and the likelihood of these patients boarding in the ED remaining steady, the need for dedicated protocols to ensure the safety of behavioral health patients and their caregivers remains paramount.
In this presentation, we presented the landscape of medical professional liability (MPL) claims in the ED, with a focus on Behavioral Health.
Dr. Ashley Yeats, an emergency medicine provider by training, former hospital CMO and contributor to CRICO’s AMC PSO white paper on safety strategies for Behavioral Health patients in the ED, shared his experience in supporting staff and providers in an ED that experienced a sharp increase of behavioral health patients after the closure of a neighboring facility, and the impact of safety protocols in protecting at-risk patients in the ED.