title: Current practices for mental health follow-up after psychiatric emergency department/psychiatric emergency service visits: a national survey of academic emergency departments.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The objective was to describe continuity of care approaches for psychiatric emergencies in the emergency department.
  
  
  METHODS
  A national survey of all 138 academic emergency departments in the United States was conducted.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Most emergency physicians (81%) had no systematic method for identifying psychiatric emergency patients with high recidivism. In order to promote outpatient care, sites commonly reported using intensive interventions, including scheduling outpatient appointments prior to discharge (72%) and in-house case management (64%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  While systematic identification of repeat psychiatric emergency patients was uncommon, emergency departments reported using a variety of fairly intensive strategies to promote continuity of care with outpatient mental health services.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01655, USA. edwin.boudreaux@umassmed.edu
authors.forename: Edwin D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Boudreaux
authors.forename: Kathryn
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Niro
authors.forename: Ashley
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sullivan
authors.forename: Christopher D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Rosenbaum
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: Carlos A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Camargo
mesh_terms: D000046:Academic Medical Centers / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care; D004637:Emergency Services, Psychiatric / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy; D014481:United States