Transfer Platform Decreases Wait Times and Increases Connectivity Within Behavioral Health
CrisisTalk | Stephanie Hepburn | July 26, 2022
Eight years ago, Shana Palmieri worked at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC. The hospital’s emergency room was experiencing a massive spike in behavioral health patients. “Our numbers were doubling and then tripling,” she says. Correspondingly, the length of time people stayed in the emergency department—also commonly called “the emergency room”—waiting for mental health services was also on the rise. To mitigate wait times, Palmieri, the hospital’s director of behavioral health services, spent roughly half a million dollars hiring staff. “They were highly trained clinical staff,” she says, “and they were spending the majority of their time making phone calls trying to find placements to move patients.” To address the issue, Palmieri, alongside her co-founders, developed Xferall, a platform used by hospitals, behavioral health facilities, and mobile crisis and co-responder teams to rapidly match people with the level of care they need.
XFERALL and D.C. hospitals will work together to deliver solutions that address the serious challenges of crowded emergency departments, clinician burnout, and delays in care. XFERALL reduces patient transfer times consistently by 80% to 90% across the network and is aligned with the National Guidelines for Crisis Care and SAMHSA best practices. The partnership with XFERALL aligns with DCHA’s commitment and work to ensure behavioral health needs are being met. DCHA works on many initiatives focused on improving behavioral health care access and outcomes.
