An inappropriate decision to admit or discharge a psychiatric patient from an emergency room is often the starting point for a series of undesirable results.
The project that the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) worked on with CTG was designed to address this issue through the development of a computer-assisted decision model to support psychiatric assessments in emergency rooms. The model was developed with the assistance of an expert panel representing both practitioners and consumers of mental health services.
This report discusses the decision support model and software developed to support the practitioner in gathering and considering all information relevant to an admissions decision.