The war for better mental health rages on, and mental health paramedics are on the front lines. How have paramedics adapted to meet the growing need? And what does a cutting-edge crisis response team look like?
Unfortunately, mental health patients experiencing psychiatric emergencies have gone underserved; however, medics trained in mental health response can improve outcomes, reduce negative interaction with law enforcement, and ensure a unified pathway to long-term psychological care.
Let’s jump into it.
The Power of Mental Health Paramedics for Mobile Integrated Healthcare
Often, the best step is the first step. While there are many aspects to improving mental healthcare for a community (and it can feel overwhelming for community leaders), great things can happen one step at a time – and getting mental health training for paramedics is a significant first step.
Over the following few sections, we’ll attempt to lay out several points and answer some common questions, such as: Is investing in mental health training worth it? How do we coordinate care with local partners? And what tools are available to get there?
Here are some of the topics we’ll cover:
- Who are mental health paramedics?
- How does the current EMS response to mental health work?
- The Common Pitfalls of Community Response to Mental Health Crisis
- The Ways a Mental Health Paramedic Achieves Positive Results
- How to Implement a Crisis Response Program for Mental Health Calls
- The Tools Required for a Coordinated Mental Health Response
More details are below!
Who Are Mental Health Paramedics?
Mental health paramedics are prehospital providers trained in advanced mental health response techniques. The idea is to have medics who are specifically trained to handle situations that could arise from psychological stressors or long-term mental illness.
Don’t paramedics already have mental health training? Yes. However, medics receive more training in areas like bleeding control and trauma, airway management, and cardiology. Other than those areas, medics receive a more general education.
So the final answer is this: paramedics have mental health training, but in many cases, having more training proves incredibly beneficial.
Beneficial how?
First, the immediate benefits are a greater quality of patient care, leading to fewer lost resources for repeat patients and a happier, healthier community—also, great engagement from your workforce. When EMTs, Firefighters, PD, and Paramedics understand the gravity and very real nature of mental illness, they are often more excited to jump on board with programs to help.
Second, you get an EMS team better equipped to care for themselves and others. With all the talk about expanding programs (and all the excitement over possibilities), it’s important not to leave your workforce behind.
Unfortunately, paramedics and first responders can suffer from severe mental health issues; however, focusing on delivering good outward mental health care can create an excellent environment for good internal care.
Finally, you get the downstream benefits of a workforce primed for paramedicine’s future. What does that look like? We’ll look at that in the following sections.
How Does the Current EMS Response to a Mental Health Crisis Work?
Currently, the emergency response to mental health crisis can be fragmented and disorganized. It’s not that there is no response, and it’s not that responders aren’t well-meaning – in most cases, it’s not a problem of individual responder training. Instead, there is a lack of infrastructure for psychological care.
EMS began as a response system for what we would typically define as emergencies: bleeding, car accidents, and heart attacks. This means that EMS systems are working to adapt to respond to mental health emergencies.
In a common and unfortunate scenario (and, sadly, there are many), a patient will call 911 during a mental health evaluation, and an ambulance will take them to an ER, where they will be quickly evaluated and discharged with little follow-up care.
However, there are even worse scenarios, like those times when a psychiatric emergency is mistaken to be a person “acting out.” Instead of being treated as a patient, they are charged as a criminal – not only does this not help, but it actively harms a patient’s mental health.
So what’s the conclusion? In many areas, there is simply no actual response to mental health emergencies. These situations get put in a gray area, leaving many first responders and emergency room personnel unsure of how to proceed.
The result is a black hole, where those with mental health struggles are sucked in, their conditions getting worse and worse, and eventually leading to total darkness. It’s bleak.
Thankfully, this is not the whole story in every community. Many areas are taking steps to actively aid mental illness in a positive, effective, and repeatable manner. Let’s talk about these pitfalls and how communities overcome them.
The Common Pitfalls of Community Response to Mental Health Crisis
In this section, we’ll list a few of the main pitfalls of out-of-hospital mental healthcare and then discuss how to overcome them. As difficult as this topic can be for many communities, it’s heartening to see that many areas have been working on solutions.
Overcoming pitfalls of mental health emergency response:
- Negative police response: To reduce the number of negative police interactions with mental health emergencies, communities will begin by offering more resources to the officers, including information on various psychiatric emergencies and how to respond best. Communities will also implement co-responder programs where trained clinicians will respond instead of just law enforcement.
- Lack of a pathway to help: Paramedics will respond to mental health patients in follow-up care, offering them resources for long-term care. Often, mental health professionals will be part of this response, ensuring that patients receive care that is specific to their needs.
- Misunderstood symptoms: Education for all community responders will improve care for people with psychiatric conditions. When responders get the training they need, they can provide more compassionate care to their community and have better resources to care for themselves.
Now, let’s go over a few other ways that communities can work with paramedics to provide care to mental health patients and implement programs that make a difference.
How to Implement a Crisis Response Program for Mental Health Calls
No matter where your EMS system, fire department, or community paramedicine program is at, this section will provide some actionable steps to begin bridging the gap in mental healthcare.
Frankly, we live in a time where it is difficult to think about overhauling programs and starting new ventures; however, as you’ll see, there are ways to get started that don’t take a ton of time or cost a ton of money. When it comes to achieving big goals, the name of the game is baby steps. Simple baby steps – slightly wobbling at first, but getting stronger with each attempt.
Steps for EMS to provide more effective mental health care:
- Mental health training for providers: the first step is providing mental health training. This simple, relatively inexpensive step requires no red tape or complex coordination. There are some solid programs out there, with many training instructors who can teach mental health first aid. Just this step alone will make a big difference in the culture around mental health care.
- Meet with mental health professionals in the community: If you’ve never had any relationship with mental health centers or psychiatric professionals, taking some time to meet with them could do wonders. This step requires no significant fiscal investment and can give EMS systems and paramedics great insight into how to care for patients. Meeting with professionals is also a good first step in setting up coordinated responses.
- Begin coordinating with law enforcement: Having a meeting with the police department will ensure that EMS and PD are on the same page when it comes to mental health response. Ensuring PD and EMS are on the same page is essential to providing consistent care.
- Start your first mental health response program: Once you’ve rallied your community, it’s time to enact a plan. Even here, it does no good to do too much too soon; instead, try to start with a program that’s manageable, such as a co-responder program with law enforcement or a follow-up program where trained medics will visit patients in their homes after they’ve been through a mental health emergency.
Now, let’s wrap everything up with a few words on how to tie everything together.
Conclusion: The Tools Required for a Coordinated Mental Health Response
Mental health paramedics are bridging the gap between crisis and good care. In the past, many mental health patients have been left with little support – with disastrous effects.
With proper training and equipment, mental health medics can meet these people where they are at and provide them with some light to guide them through dark times. Many communities go beyond siloed treatment; instead, they unite the entire team – mental health professionals, EMS, hospitals, PD – to provide optimum care.
If your community wants to bridge the gap in mental healthcare, consider the unifying tools provided by Julota. This platform allows you to track data, safely record patient information, and efficiently work with community partners.