Mental Health and Addiction Acute Care Alliance

Adult Psychiatry hosts the Toronto Mental Health and Addiction Acute Care Alliance (MH&A ACA) – an organization that strives to improve clinical coordination and management of psychiatric and behavioural emergencies. It is involved with inpatient care across the Toronto Central LHIN region through a partnership with seven hospitals:

  • Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
  • Mount Sinai Hospital
  • St. Joseph’s Health Centre
  • St. Michael’s Hospital
  • Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
  • Toronto East General Hospital
  • University Health Network

Alliance Clinical Accomplishments

  • Provides the right acute mental health and addictions care, in the right place, at the right time, in a respectful, client-centered manner, by optimizing existing capacity through connections with appropriate inpatient, outpatient, and/or community-based services.

Alliance Research Accomplishments

  • Standardizes data collection across sites to produce large, structured databases that facilitate research efforts and knowledge generation on assessment, management, and outcomes of psychiatric emergencies.
  • Tests the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of an intervention addressing the needs of frequent emergency department users (CATCH-ED) using a randomized controlled trial.
  • Is developing a collaborative care model for frequent emergency department users.
  • Is developing a model to coordinate access to urgent psychiatric care.
  • Assessing the training needs of community mental health service providers to better deliver knowledge of evidence-based practice.