Changes to NCHC's Crisis Services in 2016

North Central Health Care is committed to continuous improvement and service excellence, and this commitment extends to all of our departments and programs. With the collaborative efforts of our team at NCHC and our community partners, the Crisis Services team worked diligently on analyzing staffing, procedures and processes undergoing several changes throughout 2016.

Staffing
In 2015, the Crisis Center Team was made up of 12.6 FTE (Full Time Employees). At the end of 2016, the Crisis Center Team is growing and approaching 25.9 FTE's. All new Crisis Service Professionals are required to have a Bachelor's Degree or higher in a human services field. Along with the increased size of the team, Behavioral Health Services employees took on more education and training, recording over 5,000 hours of individual staff training in 2016.

Crisis Transportation Program
The first week in August marked the soft rollout of the pilot Crisis Transportation Program at NCHC. Crisis or hospital patients that require medical clearance or to get transportation to other facilities, like Winnebago, will be transported utilizing this program between the hours of 12 pm and 8 pm. Currently, many transports for crisis are provided by law enforcement, and it’s their policy to restrain anyone who is in the back seat of a squad car. The crisis department, as well as our partners, strongly believe that we can provide patient-centered transportation that is more in line with our drive to provide excellence in care. This program will not eliminate all need for law enforcement transports, but we hope that it will provide an additional trauma-informed option for patients in crisis. After months of planning and a donated vehicle from the Sheriff's Office, the pilot program is underway. The goal is to reduce the reliance on law enforcement transports by 60% and provide a better experience for patients in crisis. The Crisis Transportation program assisted with safe and patient-centered transport over 73 times in the first few months of operation.

Medical Clearance Requirements
Medical clearance requirements have been standardized to:
Individuals with a Blood Alcohol Content over 0.3%
Individuals with an obvious illness or injury
Individuals with a suicide attempt

Policy and Procedural Changes
North Central Health Care Behavioral Health Services wrote 40 new policies in 2016 along with revisions to procedures to ensure consistency. All Crisis Service Professionals are now required to gather collateral information to use in the decision-making process.

Partner Satisfaction
At North Central Health Care, we ask that all community partners that interact with our Crisis Services Team, complete a survey to let our team know how their experience was at that visit. We are pleased to report that through December 2016, over 93.7% of the community partners reported high satisfaction with the collaborative approach taken by our Crisis Service Professionals.

Tell Us How We Are Doing
At North Central Health Care, continuous feedback and improvement is critical in providing the best experience for all our interactions with those we serve, our community partners and our staff. Please share your experience with us by completing a review on our website, social media or completing a patient satisfaction survey. We would love to hear from you!

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