{"id":673,"date":"2019-12-20T14:57:08","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T20:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/psychiatry\/?p=673"},"modified":"2026-01-26T10:08:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T16:08:49","slug":"psychiatric-emergency-services-approved-by-nebraska-medicine-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.unmc.edu\/psychiatry\/2019\/12\/20\/psychiatric-emergency-services-approved-by-nebraska-medicine-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychiatric Emergency Services approved by Nebraska Medicine Board"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Howard

Howard Liu, M.D., M.B.A., Chair of the UNMC Department of Psychiatry<\/p><\/div>\n

In fall 2020, UNMC and Nebraska Medicine will open an Adult Psychiatric Emergency Service (PES) to help patients experiencing a mental health crisis.<\/p>\n

The Adult PES will be a separate emergency room staffed by psychiatrists, advanced practice professionals, psychiatrically-trained nurses, psychiatric social workers, and patient care technicians.\u00a0 The state-of-the-art facility will be a 24\/7 and 365-day per week unit which will safely and compassionately care for individuals with a behavioral health emergency. This service for patients in psychiatric crisis will be located in the former Clarkson Hospital Emergency Department.<\/p>\n

The Adult PES will treat all patients, consistent with Nebraska Medicine\u2019s organizational mission to transform lives for all individuals and communities. It will not deny treatment to any individual based on insurance, behavioral presentation or history of past admissions.\u00a0 Patients may walk in or may be transported by ambulance or law enforcement, and the unit will specialize in adults with both behavioral and medical issues.\u00a0 It will work closely with existing inpatient psychiatry units and other behavioral health resources in the region.<\/p>\n

Nationally, emergency room visits related to mental health and substance-use issues increased more than 44 percent between 2006 and 2014.\u00a0 Currently, one in every eight visits to an emergency department in the United States involves a patient with a psychiatric or substance use presentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of these patients wait hours or even days for transfer to inpatient psychiatric facilities. And this problem is only getting worse,\u201d said Dr. Howard Liu, Chair of the UNMC Psychiatry Department. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a huge increase in mental health and substance use visits to our emergency department over the past four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Dr. David Cates, Vice Chair of Clinical Services of the UNMC Psychiatry Department and Behavioral Health Director, Nebraska Medicine, \u201cfrom 2015 to 2019, we saw nearly an 80 percent increase in people with a psychiatric crisis coming to our emergency department, and had more than 3000 behavioral health emergency visits last year alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

This initiative was led by a joint steering committee including:<\/p>\n