Tucson crisis center expanding services for faster mental health care

Caitlin Schmidt

March 03, 2022 |

Arizona Daily Star |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Tucson, Arizona

The Crisis Response Center provides mental health and crisis care services as an alternative to emergency rooms or jails. The center is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and offers a variety of services focused on recovery for children, teens and adults struggling with mental health and/or substance abuse. The Center is set to expand ahead of the new 988 dialing code for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Once expansions are done, the Center will have the capacity to serve between 400 and 600 extra visits a month, on top of the 800 to 1,000 adults who visit the center each month.

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How Saanich Peninsula's Shoreline Medical Society has been fighting the doctor shortage

Emily Fagan

February 11, 2022 |

Capital Daily |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Canada, Saanich Peninsula, British Columbia

Shoreline Medical is a non-profit primary care network on the Saanich Peninsula that has expanded residents’ access to primary care doctors. The group has successfully attracted family care doctors despite a severe shortage through combining community and hospital-based care. Doctors spend five weeks working in family medicine and one week assisting with low-severity cases in the emergency room. The physician staffing growth has allowed Shoreline to increase their patient case load to over 17,000 residents, 11,000 of whom previously lacked a primary care doctor.

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How Vermont Is Winning the COVID Vaccination War

Susan Milligan

November 11, 2021 |

USA Today |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Vermont

A centralized communication and record keeping system, along with ensuring convenience for the largely rural population, led Vermont to the highest COVID-19 vaccination rate nationwide. The centralized system keeps track of data and provides consistent guidance. Trusted messengers, like first responders, local pharmacists, and nonprofits like the Association of Africans Living in Vermont, provide culturally competent information that eases hesitancy. Along with mass-vaccination events, house calls and pop-up clinics at small businesses and local events made getting vaccinated convenient and comfortable.

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Rwanda Saving Mothers' Lives With An SMS

James Rwema

September 14, 2021 |

Rwanda Dispatch |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Rwanda

The RapidSMS program provides mobile phones to connect pregnant women, community health workers (CHWs), ambulances, and hospitals. CHWs enter data into phones to track all pregnant women, monitor prenatal care, and identify women at risk of complications. The free platform also allows pregnant women to send a text message to their CHW, who can alert an ambulance to be dispatched to even the most remote regions and give hospitals advanced notice of the women’s arrival. The system has been so effective in improving health outcomes that the government is looking to use it for other medical issues like malaria.

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Opioid Crisis: Naloxone kits 'saving a life today, changing it for tomorrow'

Dariya Baiguzhiyeva

August 31, 2021 |

Sudbury.com |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Canada, Timmins, Ontario

Paramedics with Cochrane District Emergency Medical Services distribute naloxone kits and provide education wherever they are. From coffee shops to their emergency calls on the street, paramedics distribute 20 to 40 naloxone nasal spray kits a month to people dealing with addiction as well as their families and friends. Each ambulance stocks the kits and display stickers that let the public know they are available. They’ve begun offering refill kits that just restock the naloxone itself. An electronic code allows the Cochrane EMS to track how many kits are given out and to provide quality assurance.

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A Houston man spent hours calling 911 before responders found his family members dead

Perla Trevizo Suzy Khimm Mike Hixenbaugh Lexi Churchill

August 19, 2021 |

NBC News |

Multi-Media |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Houston, Texas

First responders usually have wide discretion over whether to force their way into a private home to respond to an emergency. One family's tragic carbon monoxide poisoning during Texas' severe winter weather in 2021 illustrates how the lack of a clear policy for firefighters, combined with miscommunication from 911 operators, led to a lengthy delay in providing medical help. Two family members died and two others suffered serious injuries when exhaust from their car filled their house and they could not respond to knocks at their door. Help was delayed for several hours.

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NYC is sending social workers instead of police to some 911 calls. Here's how it's going.

Ryan W. Miller

July 23, 2021 |

USA Today |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

A pilot project in three New York Police Department precincts of Harlem showed in its first month that it can divert some mental-health crises away from hospitalization and toward other forms of help. Teams of medics and social workers took about one-quarter of such calls, sometimes at NYPD invitation. They sent about half of the people in crisis to a hospital, significantly less often than the police do in such cases. The goal in replacing police is to avoid needless violence and arrests in non-violent, non-criminal emergencies.

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How emergency workers are combating gun violence: 'We have to invest'

Shannon Lilly

July 14, 2021 |

WTVR-TV |

Broadcast TV News |

3-5 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Richmond, Virginia

Bridging the Gap is a violence prevention program at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center that emphasizes treating more than the physical wounds of gunshot victims. Starting in the hospital and continuing afterward, the program gives victims case managers and mentors to link them to services that will change their life's trajectory, including job opportunities. The aim is to interrupt the cycles in which the same people get injured repeatedly, sometimes leading to their deaths. Since the program started in 2007, people it has helped experience far fewer repeat injuries.

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How Does Treating Gun Violence As A Public Health Crisis Work? One Bronx Program Offers A Potential Flagship Model

Elizabeth Kim

June 21, 2021 |

Gothamist |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

Stand Up to Violence is the only street-outreach gun-violence-prevention program in New York that centers its work in hospitals. Street outreach is a policing alternative that uses former gang members and formerly incarcerated people to intervene before arguments turn deadly. Hospital-based intervention work puts counselors and mediators at gunshot victims' bedside to start the intervention, and offers of services, at the earliest stage. In a four-year span, the areas covered by Stand Up, based at Jacobi Medical Center, saw many fewer shootings and instances where victims got shot again.

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'Just stop the bleeding': The first-aid training officers used to save lives in Austin's mass shooting

Tori Larned

June 12, 2021 |

KVUE-TV |

Broadcast TV News |

3-5 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Austin, Texas

Since 2014, all Austin police officers and cadets receive first-aid training, including the use of tourniquets and CPR. The training, which covers four weeks for cadets, is meant to provide stopgap, life-saving aid when more highly trained medics cannot reach the scene of a mass shooting quickly enough. Gunshot victims can bleed to death quickly, making the speed of the response paramount. Police provided such aid to multiple victims of a June 12, 2021, mass shooting, including transporting people in police vehicles to hospitals. The response is credited with saving lives.

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