EmPATH Units

EmPATH Units deliver acute behavioral healthcare to patients in crisis in a calm, therapeutic setting. Our innovative 23-hour units provide immediate access to a psychiatrist for evaluation and monitoring, and support by a compassionate multidisciplinary team.

A promising solution to America’s behavioral healthcare crisis.

Seventy-five percent of patients treated in an EmPATH unit stabilize and return home within 24 hours — without costly inpatient admissions or emergency department boarding.

Thanks to these results, EmPATH Units have been recognized and recommended by The Joint Commission and the National Council for Behavioral Health.

Empath unit image of physician speaking with patient

EmPATH Benefits Patients, Hospitals, and Communities

EmPATH stands for “Emergency Psychiatry Assessment, Treatment and Healing,” which concisely describes the function of these soothing, trauma-informed environments. EmPATH’s goal is to achieve better outcomes by getting patients immediately in front of a psychiatrist and commencing treatment in a comfortable setting, with an involved, interactive staff and regular opportunities for reassessment.

EmPATH Benefits Patients, Hospitals, and Communities

The benefits are many:

Prevents unnecessary admissions — frees up inpatient beds for those most in need and, in turn, reduces payer denials

More compassionate care — though these units serve high-risk populations, less than 1% of patients require restraint, sedation, or other coercive treatments

Improved emergency department throughput — reduces boarding for participating hospitals, freeing up beds to improve throughput and reduce the number of left-without-being-seen patients

Patient and provider satisfaction — caring for patients in a supportive setting apart from the emergency department speeds recovery and reduces the likelihood of aggressive behavior toward staff

EmPATH Unit employee speaking with psychiatric patient in the ER

An Innovation Developed Through Deep Experience

The ER has become a safety net and front door for our behavioral health population. An estimated 12–15% of emergency visits are now substance abuse- or mental health-related. Unfortunately, few emergency departments have the resources and expertise to treat behavioral health patients effectively. Many default to admitting the patient, even when it will require a long wait (up to 30 hours in some states) for a psychiatric bed.

To deliver more compassionate and timely care to patients in acute behavioral distress, the EmPATH Unit concept was pioneered by Scott Zeller, MD, a leader and researcher in emergency psychiatry. Dr. Zeller’s experience convinced him that most behavioral health crises could be safely treated without a hospital admission. Before joining Vituity, he led the development of the first EmPATH Unit, then called the “Alameda Model.”

An Innovation Developed Through Deep Experience

Traditional models are not working. The EmPATH model offers a vastly improved patient experience, which we believe will lead to improved treatment outcomes and become a model practice in rural areas across the nation."

Eric Arzubi, MD

Former psychiatry chair, Billings Clinic

EmPATH in action

The resounding national success of the EmPATH model has led to Vituity and Dr. Zeller to support the launch of more than fifteen locations across the country, replicating these results for all types of hospitals and patient populations.

The solution has been featured by NPR, CNN, Psychiatric Times, and STAT News as a potential answer to America’s behavioral healthcare crisis.

Partnering to improve patient lives

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