The solution is to increase the Omaha area’s mental health assessment and treatment facilities to help these residents. This is one of our area’s longstanding, daunting challenges.
So, Nebraska Medicine deserves congratulations for taking a major step to help meet the need. This fall, it will open a psychiatric emergency center to help alleviate the pressure on hospital emergency rooms and law enforcement agencies. Thanks to its assessment and treatment capabilities, the center is expected to help keep some adult patients out of local inpatient psychiatric beds in the community.
Nebraska Medicine’s emergency room provides an example. From 2015-19, it experienced a nearly 80% increase in visits from patients with a psychiatric or substance abuse problem, The World-Herald’s Julie Anderson reports. That amounted to more than 3,000 such visits last year.