The main place people go currently for help when they are in a mental health crisis is the emergency department of their local hospital. If psychiatric crisis care is going to improve, either the care people get at EDs will improve, or people will go somewhere else that is better suited to their situation. What changes need to happen in EDs to make them more helpful, and what changes -can- happen?
Our guest today is Dr. Jacqueline Huber, a crisis psychiatrist at a major hospital in Sydney, Australia. She treats patients at the emergency department with the highest volume of patients with mental health concerns in the biggest city in Australia. She has introduced changes in the department with the goal of making patients feel calmer and safer when they come in to the ED with a mental health concern. She's also a PhD student in emergency psychiatry and has done a systematic review of the data on inpatient stays.
On the psychcrisis.org podcast we're hunting for ways to change mental health crisis care, and the system that provides it. We're asking our guests, with their expertise from different parts of the process, to help us figure out what to do.
I want to know what it's like to do Jackie's job, what is hard about it, and what gets in the way. I also want to know what changes she would like to see to improve crisis care!
Jackie leads the emergency psychiatry team in a busy Sydney emergency department