Inside Pediatrics Spring 2025

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH

Transforming Emergency Mental Health Care NEW SAFE AREA IN EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT LEADING TO IMPROVEMENTS IN CARE

T wo years after opening a behavioral health safe area within its emergency department (ED), Children’s of Alabama is already seeing dramatic improvements to the way children in mental health crises are treated. It’s the fruition of a vision the hospital’s behavioral health team began to develop several years ago.

The Children’s of Alabama Nature Hall opened in March 2023 as an expansion of the ED designed to provide 24/7 services to children and adolescents who arrive in need of a mental health evaluation. With 16 beds, it quadrupled the hospital’s capacity to treat children with mental health needs in the ED. Children’s developed the space in response to a record surge in mental health patients that began around 2019.

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