ABSTRACT
Collaboration between agencies can provide many mutual benefits, including a consistent approach to patient care, less duplication of resources, a more comprehensive array of services, improved team spirit, and creative solutions to problems. Identified here are a number of collaborative models for the administrator to consider when planning on ways to provide emergency psychiatric care. The affiliation between a community mental health center (CMHC) and a general hospital emergency department to provide psychiatric emergency services is an extremely important model to consider. The University of Michigan and the Washtenaw County Community Mental Health Center have had several years of experience with such an affiliation. The transfer of psychiatric emergency cases from a general hospital emergency department to another facility can be much smoother for the patient, the family, the emergency staff, and the receiving facility if a previously written and agreed upon protocol for transfer is in place.
