M Health Fairview Southdale Hospital opened a new outpatient mental health care model called the Emergency Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment, and Healing (EmPATH) service. It provides people in crisis with immediate access to a team of mental health experts in a calming, living-room-style environment. After a quick triage process, people with mental health or substance use disorder needs will be guided to the EmPATH unit. The goal is to reduce the likelihood that they will need to be admitted into a hospital’s inpatient psychiatric unit.
EmPATH spaces are designed to be soothing and relaxing, with natural light, comfortable seating, and private sensory rooms. Each unit is staffed by a highly skilled team that includes psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health nurses, clinical social workers, and other licensed mental health professionals who will work with each consumer to identify needs, administer medications, and begin appropriate treatment and healing. In addition to rapid treatment, the EmPATH clinical professional team will develop care plans in partnership with each consumer and their loved ones. Care teams will also provide connections to follow-up services, so that each person will leave with a roadmap for ongoing care.
M Health Fairview is the newly expanded collaboration between the University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota Physicians, and Fairview Health Services. The health care system combines the best of academic and community medicine – expanding access to world-class, breakthrough care through its 10 hospitals and 60 clinics. It is the largest entity providing mental health services in the Upper Midwest.
This was reported by M Health Fairview on March 18, 2021.
Contact information: Aimee Jordan, Media Relations Manager, M Health Fairview, 2450 Riverside Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55454; 612-306-1811; Email: ajordan5@fairview.org; Website: https://www.fairview.org/Blog/new-empath-units-will-offer-expanded-access-to-emergency-mental-health-care
