{"id":99653,"date":"2025-08-21T15:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T15:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/99653\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T15:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T15:42:09","slug":"commonspirit-recognizes-mental-health-crisis-response-team-with-national-award-to-summit-county-sheriffs-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/99653\/","title":{"rendered":"CommonSpirit recognizes mental health crisis response team with national award to Summit County Sheriff\u2019s Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"Trixie Vanderschaaff (center right), the president of St. Anthony Summit Hospital, hands an award to Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons at the hospital in Frisco on Tuesday, Aug. 19. The Sheriff Office’s SMART program won one of CommonSpirit Health\u2019s second annual Humankindness and Health Justice Awards.
Kyle McCabe\/Summit Daily News<\/p>\n

The Summit County Sheriff\u2019s Office\u2019s mental health crisis response program earned one of CommonSpirit Health\u2019s second annual Humankindness and Health Justice awards.<\/p>\n

The accolade recognizes the impact the Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team, or SMART program, has had on the Summit County community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese awards honor organizations who embody compassion, equity and deep commitment to improving the health and well being of those they serve,\u201d said Trixie Vanderschaaff, the president of St. Anthony Summit Hospital, at the award ceremony Tuesday, Aug. 19.<\/p>\n

The SMART program has teams made of a deputy, a behavioral health specialist and a case manager. Teams respond to a number of mental health related cases \u2014 including suicide threats, welfare checks and more \u2014 to try to stabilize the person involved and de-escalate the situation.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons said the program came out of conversations his office had with community stakeholders during a \u201ccrisis\u201d in 2016. He said the community health center at the time, \u201cnine times out of 10,\u201d would advise law enforcement to drop people experiencing mental health crises off at the emergency room.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were there dropping people off, looking at the sad faces of the doctors and nurses going, \u2018We\u2019re not a mental health center,’\u201d FitzSimons said. \u201c\u2018We\u2019re a hospital. We fix broken bones and fix cuts and band aids, and we don\u2019t know what to do with these people.\u2019 Neither did we.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanderschaaff said the hospital saw an influx of behavioral and mental health patients in 2016 that \u201csomewhat\u201d overwhelmed the emergency department.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we were finding is many of those individuals might not have actually needed emergency care,\u201d Vanderschaaff said. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t have a lot of other resources and choices for them within our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons holds a CommonSpirit Health Humankindness and Health Justice Award while posing for a photo with members of the Sheriff Office\u2019s SMART program and hospital staff.Kyle McCabe\/Summit Daily News<\/p>\n

FitzSimons said he researched funding opportunities and best practices for mental health crisis response teams, and community partners including CommonSpirit provided \u201cimportant support\u201d to get the program started. He credited the members of the SMART teams for doing \u201camazing\u201d work.<\/p>\n

Andrew Gaasch, CommonSpirit\u2019s mountain region president, and FitzSimons cited a report that the SMART program diverted 87% of its clients from the emergency room in 2024. Vanderschaaff said SMART teams often address the needs of the patients where they are without needing to take them to the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want those patients in that (emergency department) environment because that\u2019s not the best place for them,\u201d Vanderschaaff said. \u201c(Emergency department) environments can be scary for anyone, so that\u2019s not always the best place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaasch also mentioned the team\u2019s work in creating plans to engage \u201chigh-risk\u201d substance use disorder patients in their treatment and its coordination with other mental health entities in the county to create a \u201cbehavioral health crisis workflow\u201d for local high school students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe SMART team\u2019s dedication to meeting patients in a crisis, right where they\u2019re at in that moment, is not just convenient,\u201d Gaasch said. \u201cIt\u2019s a vital health equity service that creates better care. It preserves human dignity when it\u2019s needed the most.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaasch said the regional community partner award presented to the SMART program is rooted in the values of \u201chealth justice\u201d and \u201chumankindness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health justice is \u201cmore than just about equitable care\u201d and is an \u201can organizational framework\u201d aimed at achieving health equity and social justice, Gaasch said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c(Humankindness is) not just a sign on the wall,\u201d Gaasch said. \u201cThese are the acts of humanity and kindness that bring health justice to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanderschaaff said Mary Skowron, St. Anthony Summit Hospital\u2019s emergency department director, submitted the hospital\u2019s nomination. The hospital did not select the SMART program as a winner itself, though. National-level CommonSpirit employees choose the winners across the system\u2019s regions, Vanderschaaff said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of individuals nominated for these awards \u2014 and this is the second year that we\u2019re doing this \u2014 and only a select few are actually awarded,\u201d Vanderschaff said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trixie Vanderschaaff (center right), the president of St. Anthony Summit Hospital, hands an award to Summit County Sheriff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-99653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99653","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=99653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}