Case Study: Behavioral Healthcare Providers achieves faster ED mental health assessments (under 30 minutes) and a 33% reduction in inpatient admissions with Amwell

BHP Using Telemedicine to Streamline Mental Health Care Delivery in Emergency Departments

Behavioral Healthcare Providers, a Minnesota non-profit that runs the Diagnostic Evaluation Center (DEC©), faced long emergency department (ED) wait times and insufficient onsite behavioral health staffing that led to poor patient experience and unnecessary inpatient admissions. To scale timely crisis assessments and connect patients to appropriate outpatient resources, Behavioral Healthcare Providers partnered with Amwell to integrate Amwell’s telemedicine technology into its DEC program.

Using Amwell’s virtual platform, Behavioral Healthcare Providers delivers remote crisis assessments to ED patients, coordinating video visits, disposition recommendations, and follow-up outpatient scheduling. The Amwell-enabled program now conducts more than 5,000 virtual assessments annually across 30+ EDs, cut median assessment wait times to about 30 minutes, reduced unnecessary inpatient admissions by roughly 33%, and achieved an 83% patient satisfaction rate.

Behavioral Healthcare Providers

Rebecca Foster

Director of Operations