Director of the Year finalist Drew Neckar of the Mayo Clinic describes how his institution revised how it manages patients with behavioral health issues to decrease incidents and increase customer satisfaction.A huge percentage of emergency room nurses are physically assaulted every year, and a significant percentage of the individuals committing those assaults are patients with behavioral health and/or alcohol or substance abuse issues.

Hospitals around the nation are searching for ways they can prevent these incidents, and one healthcare institution that has succeeded in this is the Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire, Wisc.

In our discussion, Drew describes how he partnered with the Behavioral Health, Quality and Emergency Departments to create and implement a process for care of patients with behavioral health diagnosis. The process resulted in a decrease in violent incidents, an increase in the speed with which these patients are admitted to the appropriate inpatient unit, an increase in ED staff member’s perception of personal safety, an increase in patient satisfaction scores and a decrease in the amount of time spent in the Emergency Department by Security staff.