Improving mental health care transitions for children and youth: a protocol to implement and evaluate an emergency department clinical pathway

Background While the emergency department (ED) is often a first point of entry for children and youth with mental health (MH) concerns, there is a limited capacity to respond to MH needs in this setting. Child MH systems are typically fragmented among multiple ministries, organizations, and providers. Communication among these groups is often poor, resulting in gaps, particularly in transitions of care, for this vulnerable population. The evidence-based Emergency Department Mental Health Clinical Pathway (EDMHCP) was created with two main goals: (1) to guide risk assessment and disposition decision-making for children and youth presenting to the ED with MH concerns and (2) to provide a streamlined transition to follow-up services with community MH agencies (CMHAs) and other providers. The purpose of this paper is to describe our study protocol to implement and evaluate the EDMHCP.