Quality Measures Database

A hospital room or mobile crisis response unit equipped for the reception and treatment of persons requiring immediate medical care.
Additional Domain(s) : Patients with Acute Conditions

The emergency department provides the main services for people who self-harm. Emergency department staff should assess risk and emotional, mental and physical state quickly, and try to encourage people to stay to organize psychosocial assessment.

Mental health triage systems may improve outcomes, improve access to treatment, and reduce waiting times for people with mental health problems attending emergency departments as well as reduce the numbers who leave without treatment. The Mental Health Triage Scale was found to be acceptable to non-psychiatric triage nurses. People with mental health problems might receive better care and help in emergency departments if non-psychiatric triage nurses were trained in the assessment and initial management of people with mental health problems, and if mental health services and emergency departments were to collaborate effectively in planning and delivering services.

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence. Self-harm. The short-term physical and psychological management and secondary prevention of self-harm in primary and secondary care. November 2004. P. 58, Section 4.4.1.3, P. 115, Section 7.5.7.2. Retrieved July 31, 2006 from: http://www.nice.org.uk/page.aspx?o=cg016niceguideline

III: Preliminary research evidence only or evidence based on consensus opinion only.

• Some ER's do not triage MH patients at all! They are off the radar screen.
• Mental illness seems to have been rarely taken seriously in triage.
• Perhaps the mental health assessment could be offered first, rather than have the person sit for hours in emergency.
• Emergency Departments are under different management than Primary Health Care Organizations (PHCO’S). I would suggest provincial government standards for emergency services rather than have this measure
• Through the years triage in mental health services has amounted to some guess work with many people in actual crisis sent home still at risk. This has been and is the reality.

Ratings-based Rank Relevance 51 Actionability 74 Overall Importance 66		Stakeholder Rank Academics 73 Clinicians 71 Consumers 55 Decision Makers 48 �		Special Group Rank First Nations 95 Rural Areas 78 Federal Stakeholders 25
Regional Rank BC AB SK MB ON QC NB NS PE NL YT NT NU 104 84 111 36 77 25 7 47 101 110 10 37 105				Overall Rank        65