Dallas, TX-based Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute (MMHPI) has selected Loopback Analytics, a care transitions management platform provider to develop a comprehensive network connecting area hospital emergency rooms, law enforcement and behavioral health providers.
The network will work to coordinate real-time referral and follow-up for mental health patients to ensure they receive appropriate, long-term treatment to reduce emergency room visits, law enforcement detention and recidivism, freeing up resources to focus on public safety.
In Dallas and around the nation, law enforcement officers are the primary first responders for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. Often those individuals are either jailed or transported to a local ER, neither of which are adequately equipped to deliver appropriate behavioral health care. Once the immediate crisis passes, these individuals are released and often wind up back in the system with another ER visit or incarceration—sometimes a dozen or more per year. According to MMHPI’s recent study into the problem, the cost of care for these “super-utilizers” exceeds $210 million annually in the Dallas County area alone—funds wasted on temporary fixes to an ongoing problem.
To develop a more permanent solution, MMHPI’s partnership with Loopback Analytics will build an integrated network to improve coordination between the Dallas County jail and facilities including the Parkland Health & Hospital System, Baylor Scott & White, the broader HCA system and Green Oaks Hospital, Methodist Health System, Texas Health Resources, Universal Health Services, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. Through this network, behavioral health specialists can be alerted when an individual in crisis is detained by law enforcement or brought to an ER. A trained specialist can then step in to ensure the patient is referred to the proper mental health provider to receive appropriate treatment and follow-up care.
Loopback will leverage components from recent engagements in Massachusetts, where they are currently integrated with community hospitals to identify and engage with at-risk behavioral health patients, while tracking and refining care protocols to measure intervention success. Loopback’s platform will serve as the primary systems integrator, monitoring each connected facility to notify service providers of a patient’s location, enable tracking of intervention fidelity and outcomes, and identify target population patients.
“This is a tremendous problem all across the country, and we are very impressed with MMHPI’s data-driven approach to solving it with real, measurable solutions,” said Loopback CEO Neil Smiley. “We believe this is the first major urban area in the U.S. to implement such a program at this scale, and we’re extremely pleased to be the technology partner to make it happen.”
The implementation is set to launch within the next few months and will extend throughout 2017.
