Emergency rooms saw a 44 percent increase of patients with either a mental illness or a substance use disorder, according to CNN.
A 2017 report from the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality compiled statistical data from emergency rooms and found ERs are seeing more patients with a mental illness or substance use disorder between 2006 and 2014. The overall number of patients seen at emergency rooms only increased by about 15 percent from 2006 to 2014.
"The extent to which ERs are now flooded with patients with mental illness is unprecedented," David R. Rubinow, MD, chairman of the department of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, told CNN.
Renee Hsia, MD, an attending physician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, conducted her own research and found the most prevalent psychiatric diagnoses in adults in the ER are alcohol-related disorders, anxiety disorders, and suicide or intentional self-harm.
"There are very real spillover effects from this phenomenon, which affects not only our ability to care for these patients with psychiatric needs but all patients seeking care in the ER," Dr. Hsia told CNN.
Another contribution to the spike in mental illness patients is a shortage of inpatient psychiatric beds, which overcrowds ERs and contributes to longer wait times for all patients.
"Between 1970 and 2006, state and county psychiatric inpatient facilities in the country cut capacity from about 400,000 beds to fewer than 50,000," Dr. Hsia told CNN.
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