Substance Use, Homelessness, Mental Illness and Medicaid Coverage: A Set-up for High Emergency Department Utilization

The objective of our study was to identify characteristics unique to patients with psychiatric illness who are frequent ED users for mental health care. Understanding unique features of this population could lead to better care and lower healthcare costs.Methods:This retrospective analysis of adult ED visits for mental healthcare from all acute care hospitals in California from 2009 –2014 used patient-level data from California’s Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. We calculated patient demographic and visit characteristics for patients with a primary diagnosis of a mental health disorder as a percentage of total adult ED visits. Frequent ED users were defi ned as patients with more than four visits in a 12-month period. We calculated adjusted rate ratios (aRR) to assess the association between...
Source: Western Journal of Emergency Medicine - Category: Emergency Medicine Source Type: research