Bartolotta introduces mental health services bill
State Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Carroll Township, introduced legislation this week that would help reduce hospital emergency room overcrowding and connect patients in need of mental health services to the care they require.
Bartolotta’s bill would help improve communication between hospital emergency rooms and psychiatric units by creating a real-time, voluntary registry to identify psychiatric treatment facilities that have available beds for patients. The measure would help reduce the amount of staff time spent searching for available beds.
Twenty-two other states and the District of Columbia already have similar registries in place to improve patient care.
A recent report indicated beds in hospital psychiatric units in Pennsylvania regularly sit empty because of a lack of direct communication between providers seeking care for these patients and facilities with available services.
Under the bill, the registry which would be administered by the state Department of Health and include contact information and descriptive details for participating psychiatric facilities throughout the state, as well as provide real-time information regarding the number of beds available at each facility, the type of patient to be admitted and level of security.