Related Experiment Videos
Intake follow-up of "no service" cases
Insights
Referring families to community resources at intake effectively reduced wait times for child mental health services. Most families followed recommendations and reported satisfaction with community-based treatment.
Area of Science:
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- Healthcare Management
- Community Mental Health Services
Background:
- Long pre-assessment waiting lists pose a significant barrier to accessing timely child mental health care.
- The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto aimed to improve access by utilizing community resources.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the effectiveness of redirecting patients to community resources at the initial intake point.
- To assess patient satisfaction with community-based mental health services.
Main Methods:
- A pilot study involved contacting 40 families who were referred to community resources during intake between January and June 1979.
- Follow-up included assessing adherence to recommendations and satisfaction with received treatment.
Main Results:
- 31 out of 40 (78%) families followed the recommendation to seek community-based services.
- The majority of families who were re-referred reported satisfaction with their treatment.
Conclusions:
- Re-referral to community resources at the point of intake is an effective strategy for managing patient flow and reducing wait times.
- Centralized consultation and resource centers can successfully facilitate this re-referral process, improving patient access to care.
Abstract:
At The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, an attempt was made to bypass long pre-assessment waiting lists by referring an increasing number of patients to local community resources at the point of the initial intake call. During the pilot study, we contacted 40 families who had been redirected along these lines between January and June 1979. We found that 31 (78%) families had followed our recommendation and most were satisfied with the treatment they were receiving. This suggests that "re-referral" upon intake can often be a highly effective and useful service when provided by a central resource and consultation centre. A further systematic follow-up of all applications to children's mental health clinics, including a careful appraisal of no-show cases (families who are accepted so that we can tailor our services to the specific child psychiatry needs of our varied clientel.