New Federal Funding Available to Support Mobile Crisis Teams

A new federal grant opportunity for states to implement mobile crisis intervention teams is the latest evidence that these teams have an essential role in de-escalation strategies and getting individuals experiencing a behavioral health crisis to the right level of care at the right time.

For mobile crisis teams to maximize the effectiveness of their role, they need resources in the field to identify available care options and to get the individual to that care. That’s where XFERALL fits.

XFERALL supports mobile crisis teams by putting power in the palm of their hands to avoid having to take an individual to an emergency room, jail, or other holding place. In Texas, for example, we work with 60 percent of the state’s local mental health authorities and mobile crisis teams, covering nearly two-thirds of the state’s vast geography, to help clinicians transfer patients to clinically appropriate care. Together, we have reduced behavioral health placement times by 86 percent.

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. In the field, responders can:

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. Track transfer time from time of the request to patient arrival at the receiving facility.

  4. Receive relevant post-hospitalization information to ensure follow-up, care coordination, medication adherence, and treatment plan compliance.

Grant funding is available through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 for states to plan how they will create and deploy mobile crisis teams. Applications for these planning grants are due August 15. Contact XFERALL to discuss how we can be a critical piece of these teams’ success.

Read more about our work with mobile crisis teams here.