Hospitals serving patients requiring inpatient psychiatric treatment often must rely on community-based clinicians for care. This frequently results in fragmented clinical programs with challenges to consistent physician availability and scheduling. Call coverage is also frequently affected, and hospitals are often forced to cap census or rely on expensive locum clinicians to provide care.
To ensure greater continuity and improve the overall care experience, a Texas-based regional health system partnered with TeamHealth to develop a new model of inpatient psychiatric care. This new approach to providing stable, hospital-based inpatient psychiatric care is similar to the medical hospitalist model of care that is now the standard in hospitals across the country.
The value of acute inpatient psychiatric coverage
Inpatient specialists manage patients who have been admitted to both hospital-based and free-standing facilities. These clinical teams also consult in other areas, such as on the medical units and in the emergency department, improving throughput and collaboration and facilitating the development of a comprehensive behavioral health service line. Practice-based behavioral health clinicians are free to focus their time and attention on patients who come to their offices for care, relieved of responsibilities often associated with call coverage and monitoring an inpatient population.
Developing acute inpatient psychiatry services
The system trusted TeamHealth to develop an acute inpatient psychiatry service for their behavioral health programs based on an already successful emergency medicine partnership. TeamHealth recruited 22 full-time equivalent team members, including 11 full-time specialists, six full-time psychiatric certified advanced practice clinical (APC) professionals to create a fully staffed team and additional part-time clinicians to provide weekend and holiday coverage. By cross-credentialing clinicians across multiple facilities, TeamHealth was able to provide our client system with greater resiliency.
“Our work with a major regional health system client in Texas helped them meet their goals and leverage innovative ways of providing care for behavioral health patients,” says Dr. Daniel Sussman, a regional medical director for TeamHealth’s behavioral health service line.
Improving performance and patient experience
Today, patient census and quality care are no longer impacted by the lack of physician availability. TeamHealth clinicians are also providing emergency department consults, thus reducing hold hours and enabling more efficient operations and patient throughput within emergency rooms. Consistent clinician coverage overnight and on weekends has eliminated the need for previously budgeted telehealth back-up that was costing each hospital between $10,000 and $15,000 per month. Lastly, the system has realized a revenue increase related to improvements in admission documentation processes.
Clinical and operational leadership teams are very pleased with the program and the clinicians who staff them. The system has many positive results from the additional inpatient psychiatric coverage:
- Stable, consistent staffing
- Improved patient experience
- Expanded coverage into the emergency department and medical floors
- Elimination of expenses associated with locums providers
- Elimination of census caps based on staffing limitations
- Significant revenue increase through enhanced admission documentation
- Dedicated consultation service in hospitals with high volume behavioral health patients
- Reduced less than 24-hour hospitalizations by improving provider engagement
- Collaborated in the development of off-site PHP and IOP programs
Learn more about the value of acute inpatient psychiatric coverage.