{"id":754959,"date":"2026-07-10T16:23:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T16:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/754959\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T16:23:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T16:23:23","slug":"how-penn-meds-cedar-avenue-crisis-center-streamlines-psychiatric-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/754959\/","title":{"rendered":"How Penn Med\u2019s Cedar Avenue crisis center streamlines psychiatric services"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since opening its crisis response center, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania \u2014 Cedar Avenue has seen a significant and sustained decrease in the number of psychiatric visits at its emergency department.<\/p>\n

The crisis center is part of a larger initiative<\/a> to restructure Penn Medicine\u2019s approach to psychiatric care. Six months after the center opened in 2023, the number of psychiatric visits at HUP-Cedar Avenue\u2019s emergency department had decreased<\/a> by 80% \u2014 a number that has since remained relatively stable, according to a report from Becker\u2019s Behavioral Health.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian, Perelman School of Medicine Clinical Psychiatry professor Katharine Dalke \u2014 who is also Penn Med\u2019s vice chair for clinical operations in the psychiatry department \u2014 attributed the decline in emergency department consults to the ability of patients \u201cto be seen in the CRC space itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dalke explained that prior to the center\u2019s opening, \u201cthere was no dedicated psychiatric space for patients at HUP-Cedar,\u201d which meant that \u201cif a patient needed to be seen in the emergency setting, a psychiatrist had to come to the emergency room to see them.\u201d<\/p>\n

A crisis response center on the same site had previously operated as part of Mercy Philadelphia Hospital before its closure in March 2020. The campus subsequently transitioned<\/a> to the Public Health Management Corporation Health Center on Cedar, which includes HUP-Cedar Avenue.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPatients come to the CRC either voluntarily or involuntarily,\u201d Dalke said. \u201cAs soon as possible, they\u2019re evaluated by our nursing team to get a sense of what\u2019s bringing them in to make sure that they\u2019re not acutely medically ill and can be safely cared for in the crisis center.\u201d<\/p>\n

In cases such as opioid withdrawal, Dalke noted, patients are sent to the emergency department to receive immediate medical care before any psychiatric evaluation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dalke said that once acute medical issues are addressed, a \u201cspecialist mental health provider\u201d evaluates patients to determine appropriate next steps. She added that providers have a \u201cmoral, ethical, and legal obligation\u201d to \u201ctreat patients in the least restrictive treatment setting,\u201d such as being \u201ccared for as an outpatient\u201d with weekly visits to a doctor or a therapist instead of a hospital stay.<\/p>\n

Designated crisis centers in Philadelphia must also be able to accommodate and treat patients brought in involuntarily \u201cwho are at high risk by definition of harm to themselves or other people because of their circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consequently, Dalke said, crisis centers \u201cneed to be places that are extraordinarily safe for the patients, but also to be extraordinarily safe for the staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Providing appropriate and effective psychiatric care, Dalke said, requires significant investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a lot of planning, a lot of time, and is also expensive, not just to build the space, but to be able to staff it properly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Overall, Dalke explained that crisis centers \u201cfunction really well as safety nets\u201d that provide \u201ca layer of support for people when they\u2019ve slipped through the other cracks in the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, she said that they are not intended to provide prolonged care and that it is \u201cvery unusual for people to stay with us longer than a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething that I\u2019m really interested in \u2014 and the city is really interested in \u2014 is the question of how do you meet people in a moment of crisis and get them started on a more proactive path to recovery that\u2019s not just about reacting to a crisis or someone slipping through the cracks,\u201d Dalke said.<\/p>\n

Dalke also highlighted the center\u2019s partnership with Wellness at Penn, saying that they aim \u201cto provide mental health services for Penn students in crisis as close to Penn\u2019s campus as possible\u201d in the HUP Pavilion emergency department.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are, of course, also available for students who want and need to come to the Cedar Crisis Response Center on their own,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since opening its crisis response center, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania \u2014 Cedar Avenue has seen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-754959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}