Crisis Management

With Memorial Day just passed, it seems appropriate to shine a spotlight on a department that has gone out of its way to help our veterans.  

In January 2012, a 25-year-old former recon Marine sergeant, who had served two tours in Iraq, was shot dead after what was seemingly an unprovoked evening of pool playing (for details of the incident see https://bit.ly/1NphBgU). That event struck a chord at the Phoenix Fire Department, where medical director Dr. John Gallagher recognized many of the agency’s psych patient calls were for veterans. They, like any psych patients, are taken to the ED and admitted for three or more days of observation well after the episode that landed them there in the first place.  Not anymore.

Phoenix’s Crisis Response Network (CRN) program (crisisnetwork.org) provides care of the seriously mentally ill. The PFD has partnered with the CRN so that when a call comes in that is psychiatric in nature without a medical problem, the PFD calls in CRN’s two-person counseling unit, which works with the patient.

“Previously we would take the patient to the ED, now we call this unit,” Gallagher told me when I visited PFD earlier this year.  “They transport them to the urgent psychiatry center or just send them to outpatient treatment.”

In the near future, Medicaid/AHCCCS will pay PFD $150–$250 for a non-transport, saving the healthcare system over $4,000 by avoiding an ambulance transport plus hospital stay.” The hope is to keep adding more districts to the project until it is statewide. For more on the AHCCCS program, see https://1.usa.gov/1ZAPH2f.