Thousands of Washington state's pediatric psychiatric patients spend weeks or months in emergency rooms or hospital units awaiting treatment, but a new state law aims to change that, The Seattle Times reported Sept. 28.
Passed in 2023, the new law gave the governor's office new powers to get children out of hospital wards and into care while creating a position to coordinate that transition and hold agencies accountable. Taku Mineshita is Washington's new care coordinator.
"My job is to work with the [state] Health Care Authority, Developmental Disabilities Administration, DSHS [and] Department of Children, Youth, and Families to create an environment where we can come together as a cross-systems team to hold care conferences" for children in crisis, he told the Times.
Part of what keeps pediatric psychiatric patients in hospitals is the limited number of specialized long-term beds for behavioral health.
Under the leadership of Mr. Mineshita, care teams collaborate to find ways to discharge youth from EDs and secure more permanent placement for long-term care.
Since taking over, Mr. Mineshita said more hospitals are contacting his team and asking for help before a child has been hospitalized for a long period.
"We have been starting to see those at-risk cases as well as those who are already staying at the hospital," he told the Times. "My hope is that we build a system that intervenes much earlier. Families go through so much before they get to the emergency department and children's hospitals contact us saying, 'We have a problem.'"