The city Department of Health wants hospitals to hand over information on patients admitted for a first psychotic episode, as part of a new initiative aimed at delivering care to mentally ill people who might endanger themselves and others.
City hospitals may soon be required to report data on patients ages 18 to 30 to the DOH within 24 hours of their admission.
The city insists the reported information — name, age, phone, gender, admission date, diagnosis and insurance type — will be kept confidential and held for only 30 days.
During that period, the DOH will reach out and ask patients to participate in a “linkage to care” program. If they agree, their data will be retained to help the DOH remain in contact and make sure they receive “specialized, ongoing care for their illness” at area mental-health clinics, the agency said.
“The first-episode psychosis initiative will help young adults developing schizophrenia and related illnesses receive high-quality care as soon as they are diagnosed, because new research shows that treating these conditions early can help patients improve significantly,” the DOH told The Post. “This initiative is part of a broader effort to improve our fragmented mental-health treatment system.”
The agency said patients need not fret over privacy.
“We are very sensitive to confidentiality. Part of the provision of this proposal is that the reported information to us will be deleted after 30 days, and we think that is an important component to address concerns,” a spokesman said.
In the past year, mentally ill individuals were behind the country’s bloodiest tragedies. Aaron Alexis shot 12 people dead last month at the DC Navy Yard, and Adam Lanza gunned down 26 kids and staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.
And on Oct. 3, Miriam Carey, a 34-year-old Connecticut woman suffering from mental illness, was shot dead by police after she tried to ram a barricade at the White House.
But the city said those incidents did not spur its initiative.
“Violence involving individuals with serious mental illness is tragic but uncommon,” a DOH spokeswoman said. “If people with mental illness receive more consistent care, it should reduce the suffering that they experience as well as the risk of violence.”
The DOH estimated that about 60,000 New Yorkers suffer from psychotic illnesses, with about 2,000 new cases expected to develop each year.
Only about half of those people receive ongoing psychiatric care after they’re discharged from a hospital, the agency said.
The initiative would take effect if the Board of Health approves an amendment to the city’s Health Code. The matter will receive a public hearing Oct. 22 at the agency’s Long Island City, Queens, headquarters and will come to a vote in December.
Mental-health experts saluted the city’s effort.
“They are trying to understand the number of people involved and develop effective treatments to prevent further problems,” said Kenn Dudek, president of Fountain House, a Hell’s Kitchen-based community mental-health program. “I do believe strongly that some form of early intervention will be a very good thing.”
But some think the city must do more.
“The city policy is good, but it should be extended to high-risk categories — those mentally ill involuntarily treated or discharged from jails,” said DJ Jaffe, executive director of the Mental Illness Policy Organization. “The big problems are those who have had multiple entries or already been dangerous or committed crimes. We should make them a priority.”
Yahoo Local News – New York Post
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