M Health Fairview’s EmPATH model is designed like a living room and includes recliners, sensory rooms and natural lighting.
For many people, the past two years have been especially challenging, marked by loss and confusion from COVID-19.
Experts say it’s more important than ever to acknowledge that impact on our mental health and increase access to care.
M Health Fairview’s new approach, called the Emergency Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment and Healing (EmPATH) model, treats patients in a quiet, living room setting, rather than the bustling emergency room.
A year after its debut, doctors say it’s working: It’s already cut emergency room admissions in its first year by more than half.
“What we’re doing is working, and I think it’s working in two contexts,” said Dr. Lewis Zeidner. “One is to de-escalate the crisis, and two is to put people on the path to getting the care they need so the emergency department doesn’t become their primary caretaker.”
Among M Health Fairview care providers, 17,000 patients a year are admitted for a mental health crisis. It’s a number that, according to Dr. Zeidner, is increasing every year.
“A lot of times when someone comes into an emergency department, they’re really in crisis,” Dr. Zeidner said.
The chaotic environment is not ideal for someone in crisis, so it was clear that a new approach to care was needed, one that some University of Minnesota students, in part, designed.
“A lot of the artwork is natural scenes, there’s natural light, unlike a traditional emergency department, and then there are sensory rooms,” Dr. Zeidner said.
It is the first space of its kind in Minnesota that allows patients the time they need to be fully treated by mental health clinicians in a less restrictive space.
Data from the first year shows that it has reduced inpatient admission for people with mental health symptoms by 60%. Before EmPATH opened, Southdale Hospital admitted about 40% of people who came to the emergency department with a mental health crisis. Now, with the specialty care that EmPATH offers, that number has dropped to 16%.
It has helped about 2,200 people so far, and what’s more, says Dr. Zeidner, they rarely treat the same patient twice.
“We can resolve the crisis, help them resolve their crisis, and they can go back to their normal lives,” Dr. Zeidner said.
And when a patient is discharged, experts have already scheduled an appointment with an appropriate doctor, who then follows up with a phone call.
Fairview now plans to expand EmPATH services at its largest hospital, M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center, which will serve adult and pediatric patients.
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