Pop-Up Treatment Plans for the Urban Psychiatric Emergency Room

Individuals with chronic mental illness and high utilization of emergency services present a challenge to psychiatric emergency departments. Among the strategies for working with these patients is assertive community treatment (ACT). One of its main advantages is that patients become well known to their case managers, who can in turn readily provide comprehensive collateral information to emergency services clinicians. This information promotes clinical decision making (such as to discharge or admit quickly), resulting in a reduced length of stay. Another potential outcome is fewer emergency visits overall. When a delay in obtaining this information occurs (outside ACT’s operating hours, for example), emergency department clinicians need access to this information by another method.