Cleveland-Area Hospitals Put 79% Of Behavioral Health Emergency Visits On Wait List For Admission

During the month of June of 2017, 778 consumers in behavioral health crisis due to psychiatric disorders or addiction disorder visited emergency departments at five hospital systems in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Within this group, 21% (167 people) were hospitalized, and the remaining 79% (631 people) were waiting for an open inpatient psychiatric bed. About 72% of those waiting for inpatient admission could have been by a lower level of care, such as crisis care, intensive outpatient care, and residential care. However, because the county lacked lower levels of care, the people waiting for an inpatient bed were boarded in the . . .