Patients who are placed into emergency detention by law enforcement for their acute psychiatric needs and are medically stable are navigated to the appropriate psychiatric facility versus area emergency departments. This system change has decompressed local emergency departments, where psychiatric patients were often boarded for hours awaiting a more appropriate facility. All behavioral health facilities with inpatient beds are reporting their diversion status, and MEDCOM, a 24/7 dispatch center currently routing all trauma patients in the region, is now routing medically stable psychiatric patients to an appropriate facility. [more...]

The Psychiatric Emergency Services System of Care (PES) was created to provide a safe environment for adult mental health patients presenting to acute care emergency departments who require timely mental health evaluations. The purpose is to decompress the overcrowding of mental health patients in emergency departments. PES provides immediate psychiatric evaluations, clinical assessments, and linkage to the next appropriate level of care. Three facilities are providing PES: San Antonio Behavioral Healthcare Hospital-7 beds, Southwest General Hospital-7 beds, Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital-6 beds. The Local Mental Health Authority of Bexar County, the Center for Health Care Services, has embedded clinicians in MEDCOM and at the PES facilities to help facilitate the PES transfers and provide support in linking and coordination to the most appropriate level of care. [more...]

After reviewing the first full year of data from the Law Enforcement Navigation Program, the Collaborative identified a population of 100 individuals who have been emergency detained six or more times in one year. In an effort to reduce emergency detentions and the subsequent use of emergency and inpatient services by providing ongoing engagement and wraparound care, a multidisciplinary team, including San Antonio Police Department Mental Health Unit, San Antonio Fire Department EMS Mobile Integrated Healthcare, and the Center for Health Care Services, has been launched. [more...]

Haven for Hope (H4H) is San Antonio’s largest homeless shelter and has an average of 1,400 people on campus daily. For the last several years, it has also been the top address for 9-1-1 calls. The STCC Steering Committee allocated funding to H4H and San Antonio Fire Department’s Mobile Integrated Health (MIH) Team to intervene in this cycle. MIH provides services to H4H clients from 8 pm to 7 am seven days a week in the Acute Care Station with the primary goal of providing medical support onsite, building patient profiles, and when applicable, cancel the transport to a local hospital, and refer to CentroMed, San Antonio’s Federally Qualified Health Center, for continuity of care. [more...]

Since 1963 Crosspoint has been providing outpatient and residential services to primarily veteran and justice involved Bexar County residents. In 2018 Crosspoint opened behavioral health diversion program that provides transitional housing, psychiatric care, employment services, group and individual counseling, and case management to residents. The STCC Steering Committee has allocated funding to support this program. [more...]

In an effort to create a structure to enable robust data sharing, certain STRAC covered entities members have elected to form an Organized Health Care Arrangement pursuant to HIPAA. Covered entities which have executed an OHCA Participation Agreement and Business Associate Agreement, may share information through the OHCA in support and in furtherance of designated specific community-health focused initiatives.

Signatories as of 12/31/19:
Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council
Bexar County Hospital District
Methodist Health Care System of San Antonio
Christus Santa Rosa Health System
Baptist Health System
Southwest General Hospital
Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas
San Antonio State Hospital
San Antonio Behavioral Healthcare Hospital
San Antonio Council on Alcohol and Drug Awareness
The Center for Health Care Services
CentroMed
The City of San Antonio
Alamo Area Council of Governments
University of Texas Health San Antonio
New Season

The online platform Signify Community, a product of Signify Health, is a cloud-based technology platform designed to address a patient’s social determinants of health (SDoH). STCC is deploying Signify Community to members to better address patients at the highest utilization of crisis services. This collaborative platform aids clinicians across the system in understanding the person and their individual challenges in order to build a relationship based on care, concern, and compassion. It connects social, financial, and local community resources to identify and solve the SDoH. This leads to decreased risk factors, ensuring successful transitions from one phase of a person’s health journey to the next.