Kaiser Health News recently profiled the use of mobile crisis teams in a couple of communities in Montana. The piece highlights the growing trend of such teams being deployed to more effectively respond to psychiatric crises and the likelihood that such teams will only grow in popularity with enhanced Medicaid funding available next year.
The author also notes, however, that even with such teams, “gaps still exist, such as not always having somewhere to take a patient who needs a stable place to recuperate or get more help.”
That gap is exactly where XFERALL can help.
Our mobile patient transfer platform gives behavioral health co-responders and solo mobile behavioral health crisis teams the ability not only to identify a clinically appropriate patient bed for an individual in crisis but to actually facilitate the patient transfer, all without needing to make multiple phone calls or faxes. Responders have the power in the palm of their hands in the field to:
Locate a facility with not only an available bed but also clinically appropriate staff and other resources needed for a particular patient’s diagnosis, acuity, level of security needed, and other relevant demographics, such as age and gender.
Upload all relevant clinical documentation one time that can be viewed in real-time by all stakeholders. The clinical documentation sharing feature saves an average of 133 minutes per patient transfer.
Track transfer time from time of the request to patient arrival at the receiving facility.
Receive relevant post-hospitalization information to ensure follow-up, care coordination, medication adherence, and treatment plan compliance.
In the Texas Panhandle, a consortium of the community mental health agency, law enforcement, and hospitals use XFERALL to better facilitate care for individuals in crisis whether they present in a hospital emergency department, jail, or other setting. The shared use of the platform gives the mobile crisis team access to a larger network of available psychiatric beds and quicker responses to whether an individual meets a psychiatric facility’s criteria for admission and eliminates unnecessary travel for jail personnel/law enforcement and potential security risks of transporting an individual.
In June, we also began working with the Denton Police Department’s newly created Crisis Intervention Response Teams to equip their co-responders with the tools in the field to expedite actual treatment for individuals in crisis and to reduce avoidable arrests, jail bookings, and hospital emergency department stays.
As more communities across the country invest in law enforcement/behavioral health mobile crisis teams, the XFERALL mobile app and transfer platform should be the third leg in the stool – an essential element to support the effectiveness of the response by getting people to appropriate treatment quickly.
Download our issue overview to learn more about XFERALL’s work with law enforcement and mobile behavioral health crisis teams for better patient care.