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.'”
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