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Dignity Health and Sacramento County Opens Behavioral Health Crisis Services Collaborative

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Sacramento - Today, Dignity Health in partnership with Sacramento County held a celebratory event in support of the soon-to-be opened Behavioral Health Crisis Services Collaborative (BHCSC) unit on the campus of Mercy San Juan Medical Center.

The new unit will have an initial capacity to serve 12 consumers at any given time who are 18 years and older and present in the emergency department, are medically stabilized, and would benefit from multi-disciplinary mental health evaluation and crisis stabilization.

“Dignity Health is proud to partner with Sacramento County on this important project for our community, and appreciates the leadership of the Board of Supervisors, our team at Dignity Health and our community partners to bring this project to fruition,” said Laurie Harting, greater Sacramento division president for Dignity Health. “It’s this kind of tireless commitment and display of leadership that will make a difference in the patients we serve and in our community.”

The BHCSC is a unique public/private partnership that offers an innovative model of integrated emergency medical and emergency mental health care in one location that aims to set a standard in Sacramento and across the state for behavioral health crisis stabilization services. The unit will offer trauma-informed care and treatment to include behavioral health assessments, psychiatric assessments, crisis intervention, medication evaluation and management. Additionally, a Resource Center under the same roof will ensure consumers will be linked to aftercare through peer and family support services.

“We are excited to have this opportunity to partner with Dignity Health to build an array of behavioral health services for our community. This new integrated model between emergency medical and mental health care under the same roof is an extraordinary example of how innovation and collaboration can transform health care,” said Ryan Quist, Sacramento County Behavioral Health Director.

This new unit will create much-needed capacity and access, better continuity of care and coordination, and will place mental health on a level field with physical health. It will also link consumers to ongoing outpatient treatment and social support services that will reduce the reoccurrences of mental health crises that present to the emergency department.

“Dignity Health and Mercy San Juan Medical Center are grateful to be on this collaborative journey with Sacramento County,” said Michael Korpiel, president of Mercy San Juan Medical Center. “We appreciate all the support we have received from the County Behavioral Health Division Staff, Board of Supervisors, consumers and community to be able to demonstrate this new model of integrated care.”

More About Behavioral Health Crisis Services

Click here to read the Sacramento Bee story on the opening. You can also view the press release here. 

About Dignity Health

Dignity Health, one of the nation’s largest health care systems, is a multi-state network of 10,000 physicians, more than 60,000 employees, 41 acute care hospitals, and 400-plus care-centers including neighborhood hospitals, urgent care, surgery and imaging centers, home health, and primary care clinics. Headquartered in San Francisco, Dignity Health is dedicated to providing compassionate, high-quality, and affordable patient- centered care with special attention to the poor and underserved. In FY 2018, Dignity Health provided $2.1 billion in charitable care and services. For more information, please visit our website.

About Sacramento County

Sacramento County, home to more than 1.5 million people, exists to improve residents’ quality of life by providing cost-effective public services while fostering economic health, regional cooperation and stewardship of community assets. The Department of Health Services Behavioral Health Division works to improve the health and wellness of Sacramento County residents and provides culturally competent system of care for mental health and alcohol/drug treatment. To learn more about Sacramento County and the services it provides, visit our website.  

 

 

Publish date: 

Tuesday, July 09, 2019

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Media Contact: 

Lindsay Leszczynski 
External Communications Manager
[email protected]