BATON ROUGE, La. – The Louisiana Department of Health is seeking input to assist in the development of a vision for a modern and comprehensive crisis system of care. This system is intended to serve people who are experiencing a mental or behavioral health crisis. The envisioned system will provide appropriate and timely interventions that allow people to receive treatment and services instead of in restrictive care setting such as a nursing home or the involvement of law enforcement.
A question-and-answer session will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday, March 14 in Room 118 of the Bienville Building, 628 N. Fourth St., Baton Rouge. Those who wish to provide comment but are unable to attend may send their name, organization, address, contact number, email address and comments to MyChoiceLA@la.gov by 11:45 9 p.m. CST on March 29, 2019. For questions or additional information, email MyChoiceLA@la.gov with “CRISIS SYSTEM RFI” in the subject line.
Potential stakeholders who may be interested in providing input include individuals, entities, managed care entities, healthcare systems and providers, advocacy organizations and/or organizations with Information Technology expertise.
How it Works
In June 2018, the Department of Health (LDH) entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice focusing on a target population of Medicaid-eligible people over the age of 18 with a serious mental illness diagnosis either living in or at risk of entering a nursing facility. LDH’s primary focus is to asses those within the target population who are living in nursing facilities; transitioning those who want to transition back into the community and are able to do so with the right supports; and build the behavioral health and housing services across the state necessary to support the needs of this population in the community, included improved access to crisis services and supports.
Through a Request for Information, the Louisiana Department of Health is asking for public input on the creation of a crisis system of care consistent with the following values:
● Accessible to individuals across the state
● Addresses the needs of specialized populations
● Is organized into a crisis system of care rather than a set of disparate, programmatic parts
● Maximizes use of technology (i.e., call centers, electronic tracking of service availability,
real-time crisis system intelligence)
● Is guided by the knowledge of and includes individuals with lived experience in system design,
service delivery and oversight
● Delivers crisis treatment services that are experienced as safe, crisis resolving, health promoting
and collaborative
● Delivers services that are resolution focused (rather than limited to assessment/disposition)
A comprehensive crisis system of care will give LDH the opportunity to intervene earlier, minimize use of coercive approaches, work in partnership with other systems to prevent avoidable institutionalization and segregation, and reduce the harms associated with separations from a person’s community, including impact on family, natural supports, education, work and housing.
The complete Request for Information is available here.
