House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

House of Representatives
Session of 2017 - 2018 Regular Session

Posted:	October 18, 2017 10:29 AM
From:	Representative Doyle Heffley
To:	All House members
Subject:	Emergency Psychiatric Bed Registry

In the very near future I will be introducing an important piece of legislation that will provide for an emergency psychiatric bed registry. The Department of Human Services will develop and administer an internet-based psychiatric bed registry to collect, aggregate and display information about available beds in public and private inpatient psychiatric facilities for the treatment of individuals in need of emergency inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. You may recall similar legislation, HB 825 which originally would have created a registry for mental health concerns as well as addiction. In working the bill, it was discovered that we were better positioned to move forward on the addiction piece while the mental health may need a public hearing. Therefore, I will be introducing separate legislation to address the psychiatric emergencies only. This registry will contain information for facilities; information regarding the number of beds available at a facility; and provide a search function to identify available beds that are appropriate for the treatment of a mental health emergency.
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