Ready for Change: Emergency Department

By Patrick Callan, Communications Coordinator

 Ontario’s only 24/7 psychiatric emergency department will soon have a brand new home. 

CAMH’s Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kachan Emergency Department (ED) is getting ready to move from College Street to Queen Street as part of CAMH’s Phase 1C redevelopment project. 

The Phase 1C redevelopment project will see two new state-of-the-art buildings opened at CAMH’s Queen Street location in late November: The McCain Complex Care & Recovery Building and the Crisis & Critical Care Building where the new ED will be housed.

Improving care for people in crisis

CAMH’s ED is the only emergency department in Ontario that provides 24/7 emergency assessment and treatment focused exclusively on adults with mental health and substance use issues. 

The new ED at CAMH’s Queen Street site, which was designed with input from people with lived experience of accessing mental health services, is double the size of the current space at College Street. It features three large assessment rooms, more treatment rooms and provides private waiting areas and entrances for emergency transport services. 

With its increased capacity, the space will offer people in crisis safe, dignified and private spaces to receive care. It will also provide enough space to include family members who are supporting their loved ones while at the ED.

CAMH Emergency Department Psychiatrist Dr. Juveria Zaheer says the environmental changes will have a positive impact on how people approach and receive emergency mental health care.

“When someone walks into a beautiful, dignified, meaningful space it can make such a difference in how care is delivered and experienced,” she says. 

Improved intake, assessment and triage procedures for patients are just some of the ways that the patient experience will be improved in addition to reducing current wait times, adds Dr. Zaheer.  

The improvements will serve the public better because staff will be able to triage patients quicker as opposed to having a huge bottleneck at the front door, explains Marc Greene, Senior Manager, CAMH Emergency Department.

“Decreasing wait times to be triaged could also lead to decreased length of stay,” he says. 

The relocation of the ED site is also an important part of CAMH’s vision for the future of the Queen Street site where clinical, educational and research services are all co-located. For patients who are admitted to CAMH, being on one site means they won’t have to travel elsewhere. 

“Sometimes patients or families who have never come to the ED get nervous about having to go somewhere else to be admitted to another CAMH program,” says Marc. “Now we will also be able to bypass that worry.”

A safe health care experience 

Along with changes in admission and triage, the new ED features more waiting rooms and consultation rooms, 12 single bedrooms in the Emergency Observation Unit (compared to six  now), and two seclusion rooms—one for isolation and one for seclusion (compared to one room now serving a dual purpose). 

“Everything is just larger,” says Marc. “The acute waiting area has two sections, so if there is a situation happening where a patient requires more direct or emergency support we have the ability to move patients to another area of the same waiting room without having to move them to another section, which could risk them possibly leaving. That’s an amazing change.”

More physical space in the ED also means patients can walk and move around, he adds. 

Once in a lifetime move 

Moving a fully operational program requires months of precise planning and coordination across a variety of sectors. 
The ED move is scheduled to happen over two days—November 25 and 26. The ED will remain open the entire time and patients will be transferred from location to the other. 

CAMH has been working in collaboration with several partners including emergency response providers, shelter and housing providers, community health centres, local hospitals, and long-term care providers to ensure everyone has the information they need to know about the move and to ensure a seamless transition for the ED to its new space.