MHMRA of Harris County - Annual Report Fiscal 2013-2014 | Page 9

Wraparound and in-home services
for high-risk consumers with IDD
and Autism Spectrum Disorders and
their families were also established in
order to avoid utilization of intensive,
more costly services. A liaison team
of MHMRA experts was also formed
to provide consultative services to
physicians who treat consumers with
co-occuring IDD and Mental Illness
disorders while they are in treatment at
the University of Texas Harris County

Psychiatric Center (UTHCPC) or
the NeuroPsychiatric Center (NPC).
Services include assisting patients
admitted to UTHCPC to apply for
MHMRA IDD services; providing IDD
consultation services to UTHCPC and

NPC staff; providing liaison services
between UTHCPC staff and MHMRA
of Harris County; and providing
liaison services between Harris County
Probate Courts housed at UTHCPC
and MHMRA of Harris County.

More Individuals with a dual diagnosis of IDD and
mental illness are seeing improved services and
supports

p s yc h i at r i c Em e r g e n c y S e r v i c e s

T

he 1115 Medicaid Waiver dollars
also helped address another major
concern: emergency rooms across the
County being overburdened by mental
health crisis visits. One of the projects
to assist in reducing this pressure is
the Interim Care Clinic (ICC), where
Individuals who need urgent mental
health care are now diverted from
seeking care through the emergency
system and welcomed into renovated,
expanded staffing, and extended
service hours.
The expansion for the ICC also provides
a benefit for the staff of our Center’s
acute Psychiatric Emergency Services
(PES), who can now focus efforts on
the most severe cases and individuals
who are brought in by law enforcement
officers. In addition, those with urgent
care needs are now able to receive
services in a more timely fashion.

Individuals seeking services at the
ICC do not necessarily have to be
established MHMRA patients. The
ICC can address needs that don’t
require routine outpatient mental
health services, or if the patients don’t
have an assigned provider at the time
and their condition might deteriorate
to the point of needing hospitalization
if they don’t receive timely services.
Our
partnerships
with
local
Law
Enforcement
organizations
strengthened over the last two years.
Crisis Intervention Response Teams
(CIRT) increased from 13 to 19 by
the end of Fiscal Year 2014. Speciallytrained officers from the Houston
Police Department and the Harris
County Sheriff ’s Office team up with
an MHMRA licensed clinician in a
squad car to help resolve mental health
crisis calls at the scene before they
may deteriorate further and result in

hospitalization or incarceration. CIRT
helps divert individuals from jail – less
than 1 percent of all CIRT calls result in
an individual being transported to jail.
Conversely, 99 percent of individuals
who could be charged are not, and
are provided mental health treatment
instead.
CIRT is not the only collaborative
program between our Center and
local law enforcement. The list of
programs on the next section describes
more innovative ways our clinicians
and officers equipped with crisis
intervention training are teaming up to
more effectively resolve mental health
crises that could otherwise worsen,
or facilitate individual access to more
intensive crisis intervention services, if
needed.

Annual Report 2013-2014 | Building Brighter Possibilities | pg. 6