Psychiatry
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Pediatric Mental Health Crisis Is ECRI’s Top Safety Concern for 2023
The ED assessment should include appropriate triage: screening for harm of self or others, a thorough assessment, and consideration of social determinants of health.
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For Sale: Private Mental Health Data and Consumer Trust
Once people learn mental health data can be sold or misused, trust erodes. These issues might dissuade people from seeking care online or via an app. For many, that may be their only option.
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Remain Cautious When Using Chatbots to Provide Mental Healthcare
Consider these common, innocuous questions: Are you taking your medications as directed? You look a little upset — is everything OK? Do you need some urgent help? Now, consider if an AI tool, not a human therapist, asked a patient these questions, along with the issues of trust, privacy, and bias. Can humans and machines establish a bond?
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Novel Unit Accelerates Psychiatric Care, Keeps Patients Flowing
Some departments have designated space where patients with psychiatric emergencies will be taken as soon as they are medically cleared in the ED. Here, they will be evaluated promptly and treated by psychiatric specialists. This model has prevented boarding, opened more beds, made transfers smoother, and produced better outcomes.
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Is an EmPATH-Style Unit Right for Your ED?
When deliberating, remember the busy, noisy environment of the ED often makes symptoms worse for patients who have presented with psychiatric emergencies. Many EmPATH units consist of designated open spaces where patients are free to roam while under observation.
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There Could Be Trouble if Providers Board Children with Psychiatric Complaints
If parents disagree with a hold, convey that staff are keeping the child safe, explain the steps they are taking to find an accepting hospital, and detail how the ED cannot discharge a patient who is on an involuntary hold. When families are informed and given space to vent, the situation can de-escalate.
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Restraint Use Can Put Provider, Hospital in a Jam
Personal animus or emotion on the part of an emergency provider should never be a rationale for the use of restraints. EDs are at risk for allegations of unlawful restraint or assault in circumstances where the use of restraints is not justified.
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Emergency Clinicians’ Emotional Reactions to Psychiatric Patients Affect Care, Well-Being
Survey participants painted a picture of negative healthcare experiences, for both patients and clinicians, that are adversely affecting the quality of care and staff well-being. Change is badly needed to ensure these vulnerable patient populations receive care — and to support ED providers.
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Remote Mental Healthcare Facing Ethical, Legal Pushback
Patients might assume they are talking with a licensed therapist, when they actually are speaking with an unlicensed therapist or a mental health coach. That is an ethical violation.
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Does Surviving an ECMO Stay Put Patients at Greater Risk for Mental Health Problems?
Survivors of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) demonstrated a modest increase in risk of new mental health diagnoses after discharge vs. ICU survivors who do not undergo ECMO.