SGEM#360: We Care a Lot – The EmPATH Study

Date: February 21st 2022

Reference: Kim et al. Emergency psychiatric assessment, treatment, and healing (EmPATH) unit decreases hospital admission for patients presenting with suicidal ideation in rural America. AEM February 2022.

Guest Skeptic: Dr. Kirsty Challen (@KirstyChallen) is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Emergency Medicine Research Lead at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust (North West England). She is Chair of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Women in Emergency Medicine group and involved with the RCEM Public Health and Informatics groups. Kirsty is also the creator of the wonderful infographics called #PaperinaPic.

Case: You are in discussion with your emergency department (ED) manager about the number of patients boarding for hours to days and you are both aware that many of these patients are attending with mental health crises. You wonder whether a model of care involving a specifically designed unit would improve their patient experience and ED boarding times.

Background: We have covered mental health issues only a few times on the SGEM. The latest SGEM Xtra was a very powerful episode with Dr. Tim Graham sharing his story of burnout, anxiety, and depression. This was based upon his article published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). We also had Dr. Tyler Black on that episode to provide his expertise as a suicidologist. 

ED visits in the US for mental health conditions has increased by 44% from 2006 to 2014. Inadequately resourced provision for emergency mental health care is familiar to health care professionals in multiple jurisdictions and patients can spend days in the ED waiting for inpatient admission.

We’ve talked about mental health issues in SGEM #252 in 2019. In that episode we concluded that clinician gestalt was likely to be as accurate and efficient in screening for suicidality as a specific tool (Convergent Functional Information for Suicidality screening tool). Also, in SGEM #313 we recognised that three or more ED attendances for alcohol-related issues was associated with a 1-year mortality risk of over 6%.

Clinical Question: Does the implementation of a dedicated interdisciplinary unit for mental health patients presenting to an ED with suicidal ideation or a suicide attempt reduce inpatient admissions and ED boarding time?

Reference: Kim et al. Emergency psychiatric assessment, treatment, and healing (EmPATH) unit decreases hospital admission for patients presenting with suicidal ideation in rural America. AEM February 2022.

* Population: Adults presenting to a single academic tertiary referral ED in Iowa with suicidal ideation or after a suicide attempt – determined using administrative data..

* Excluded: Patients that were medically unstable, needed co-management of a medical condition, were incarcerated, actively violent or judged by the provider to be intoxicated. Also,