As states struggle to find available appropriate crisis services including inpatient and crisis beds to treat behavioral health disorders, more and more of them are establishing a web-accessible, electronic database of beds, “bed registry” to organize and monitor critical behavioral health resources, direct individuals in crisis to available treatment settings, and improve communication among providers. NASMPHD administered Transformation Transfer Initiative (TTI) grants, funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), to 23 states in 2019 to help them launch or expand bed registries. Through successive surveys and individual interviews with state officials, NRI tracked the implementation of bed registries to create individual fact sheets that describe key characteristics of each of the 23 state’s bed registries. These fact sheets can serve as blueprints or guides to states and localities to design and implement bed registry platforms critical to coordinating crisis care.
During the webinar, the presenters addressed some key questions about its application to state behavioral health systems such as:
•Who uses bed registries?
•How are bed registries organized?
•How “real-time” is the information?
•Are private facilities included in bed registries?
•Can bed registries speed up the process of getting people into treatment?
Following this 90-minute webinar, (on April 16th) participants were able to register for a more intimate dialogue with the presenters the following day. This dialogue was a facilitated 60-minute session where the webinar presenters acted as an expert panel and the smaller number of registered webinar participants were able to ask more detailed questions and engage these expert presenters more comprehensively.