Abstract:
The days after an emergency department visit for a mental health or substance use crisis are critical, yet many patients never make it to a follow-up appointment. Phone outreach after discharge often fails to reach them. Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) tried a different approach: meeting members in the emergency department (ED), before they leave, with someone who has been there.
With CIN grant funding, IEHP certified three community health workers (CHW) as peer support specialists and embedded them in the emergency departments of two partner hospitals. Drawing on their own lived experience, these specialists connect with members at the point of care, help them navigate behavioral health services, and build the trust that makes follow-up more likely.
This CIN webinar will explore how IEHP’s model works, what it takes to embed peer support in the ED, and why lived experience can be a powerful motivator for staying connected to care.
About this event:
Many people who visit the ED for mental health or substance use conditions struggle to access ongoing care after they leave the hospital. This gap puts them at risk for repeat ED visits and affects key quality measures: follow-up after emergency department visit for mental illness (FUM) and follow-up after emergency department visit for substance use (FUA).
IEHP teams routinely called members after ED visits, but they rarely reached them. To close this gap, IEHP used CIN grant funding to certify three CHWs as peer support specialists and place them directly in the ED, where they can engage members in person and connect them to behavioral health services before discharge.
In this webinar, IEHP will share its approach and explore the value of lived experience in motivating members to follow up with behavioral health care. Speakers will also discuss how to reduce barriers to care and how PSS encounters can count as a qualifying follow-up visit under the FUM and FUA measures.
This webinar is intended for managed care plan leaders, county behavioral health leaders, quality improvement professionals, hospital and emergency department administrators, and behavioral health providers. It will be highly interactive, so please come ready to reflect, discuss, and participate.
By the end of the webinar, participants will be able to:
- Describe how the unique skills of peer support specialists affect member care.
- Explain the connection between lived experience, in-person engagement at the point of care, and increased follow-up with behavioral health services.
- Identify strategies for integrating peer support specialists into ED and behavioral health workflows, including counting peer support specialists encounters toward FUM and FUA follow-up requirements and improving care coordination across managed care plans and county partners.
The speakers will be:
- Nancy Villalobos, CMPSS, Community Health Worker, IEHP
- Crystal Santinac, CMPSS, Community Health Worker, IEHP
- Danielle Follweiler BSN, RN, Nurse Manager, St. Bernardine Medical Center- Dignity Health
For questions about this event, contact the CIN Program Office Team.
Learn more about the California Improvement Network, a project of the California Health Care Foundation that is managed by Healthforce Center at UCSF, and sign up for the CIN newsletter.
