Terri Coyle, vice president of behavioral health at St. John's Episcopal Hospital in New York City, spoke with Becker's about her focus in 2023.
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Question: What is your organization's focus in regard to behavioral healthcare going into 2023?
Terri Coyle: Behavioral health needs across the country and state continue to expand, and we want to ensure that our investment in behavioral health services aligns with the needs of our community. We are expanding crisis services as we work with the state's mental health office to build out and license a Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program. CPEPs are 911 receiving facilities for psychiatric crises, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing psychiatric triage and evaluation, full psychiatric assessment and extended observation beds for those in psychiatric crisis. As part of the CPEP, EHS will also establish a psychiatric mobile crisis team that will work with the CPEP team, community providers and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to respond to potential psychiatric crises within the community and connect these individuals to appropriate outpatient or emergency care services.
Our second area of focus will be on child and adolescent behavioral health. The past few years have delivered a surge in child/adolescent behavioral health needs and we want to ensure that we are meeting those needs as well as providing preventive services. Our Community Mental Health Center is being relocated to a bigger, more modern space that will allow us to offer family peer support services, care coordination, psychiatric and psychological assessments and individual and family counseling all in one location to ensure that families receive the wrap-around support they may need.
Additionally, we are also focused on prevention through identification and intervention of children in our pediatric practices that may be at risk. We currently embed clinicians in the pediatric primary care practices as part of our adoption of collaborative care model, but in 2023, EHS will pursue grant funding for a Healthy Steps program, which is a nationwide, evidence-based model that provides early childhood development support to families where they are most likely to access it — the pediatric primary care office. With these initiatives , the CPEP and the expansion of child and adolescent services, EHS is committed to responding to both those in our community who are suffering and in crisis and also investing in the structures and programs that contribute to the strength and resilience of the families of the Rockaways.