About this course

Learning Objectives

• Describe the three pillars of a comprehensive crisis system, including crisis call centers, mobile crisis response, and facility-based crisis services.
• Identify key outcome measures and emerging evidence related to the effectiveness, quality, and cost impact of behavioral health crisis services.
• Discuss policy, regulatory, workforce, financing, and implementation considerations that influence the development of crisis systems and opportunities for clinician engagement.

Target Audience

Course Instructor(s)

• 

  Margie Balfour, MD, PhD

  Founder and Principal, MultiPass Consulting; Executive Policy Advisor, Connections Health Solutions

  Dr. Margie Balfour is a psychiatrist and national leader in behavioral health crisis care. She is the founder of MultiPass Consulting and serves as Executive Policy Advisor at Connections Health Solutions, where she helped transform Tucson’s Crisis Response Center into a nationally recognized model. Dr. Balfour is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona and has contributed to national crisis care policy, including co-authoring the National Council for Mental Wellbeing’s Roadmap to the Ideal Crisis System and helping develop SAMHSA’s national crisis care standards. She earned her MD and PhD from the University of Cincinnati and completed residency and fellowship training in Community Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Disclosure

References

• Dee, T. S., & Pyne, J. (2022). A community response approach to mental health and substance abuse crises reduced crime. Science advances, 8(23), eabm2106. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abm2106
• Guo, S., Biegel, D. E., Johnsen, J. A., & Dyches, H. (2001). Assessing the impact of community-based mobile crisis services on preventing hospitalization. Psychiatric Services, 52(2), 223–228. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.52.2.223
• Balfour, M. E., & Carson, C. A. (2024). Crisis Receiving and Stabilization Facilities: Designing Systems for High-Acuity Populations. The Psychiatric clinics of North America, 47(3), 511–530. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2024.04.022
• Tomovic, M., Balfour, M. E., Cho, T., Prathap, N., Harootunian, G., Mehreen, R., Ostrovsky, A., & Goldman, M. L. (2024). Patient flow and reutilization of crisis services within 30 days in a comprehensive crisis system. Psychiatric Services, 75(7), 614–621. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.20230232
• Brimelow, R. E., Amalathas, A., Beattie, E., Byrne, G., & Dissanayaka, N. N. (2023). The Use of Balanced Scorecards in Mental Health Services: an Integrative Review and Thematic Analysis. The journal of behavioral health services & research, 50(1), 128–146. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11414-022-09806-3
• Balfour, M. E., Hahn Stephenson, A., Delany-Brumsey, A., Winsky, J., & Goldman, M. L. (2022). Cops, clinicians, or both? Collaborative approaches to responding to behavioral health emergencies. Psychiatric Services, 73(6), 658–669. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.202000721
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2025). National guidelines for a behavioral health coordinated system of crisis care. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://library.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/national-guidelines-crisis-care-pep24-01-037.pdf