Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Policies That Support Emergency Department Staff In Providing Behavioral Health Care, Lizabeth Lepp Hennig

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A significant portion of individuals with a behavioral health (BH) condition return to emergency departments (ED) seeking care, resulting in reduced quality of care, and contributing to disproportionate healthcare costs. Care can be improved and return visits to the ED reduced where behavioral health care and follow-up care planning are provided as part of their treatment. However, policies expected to create declines in ED use for behavioral conditions are typically in short duration or are difficult to use given other funding and policy constraints. With little known about how policy is supporting the engagement of ED staff who are critical …