Child Adolescent Psychiatry Team at The Johns Hopkins Hospital
December 2024
Child Adolescent Psychiatry Team
at The Johns Hopkins Hospital
Bloomberg 12 South
The Johns Hopkins Hospital
Baltimore
,
MD
United States
I would like to nominate the multidisciplinary Child and Adolescent Psychiatry team for the DAISY Team Award for its recent work on Bloomberg 12S and in the Peds ED with a challenging and new-to-us (at least in these volumes) patient population.
Historically, 12S has been a milieu-based acute psychiatric unit where patients attend therapeutic groups all day. Over the last few years, we’ve stretched to accommodate a few patients who, because of developmental delays, were unable to participate in groups, but who had an active psychiatric issue we could treat. And then, this summer, the only pediatric neuropsychiatric unit in the state (which focuses on acute stabilization of children with significant delays and concomitant behavioral issues) effectively closed its doors and the Children’s Center found itself inundated with larger numbers of these patients (often with level-3 autism) than it had ever seen before.
12S found itself taking care of patients outside of what our staffing, expertise, supplies, and built environment were equipped for, many of whom had significant aggressive behavior. But our team consistently ran toward the problem: thinking outside the box, consulting outside experts, collaborating as a multi-disciplinary team, and advocating for more support. Our team has been courageous, creative, compassionate, and hard-working as we have collectively struggled to provide safe and therapeutic care for these extremely vulnerable patients. It has not been easy. There have been growing pains, ideas that did not work as planned, and no small number of staff injuries, both physical and emotional.
But through it all, we have kept the main goal in sight: working together to provide the best care we can. There are still many needs: the State, the MHA, and JHHS all need to create sustainable supports for this often-ignored patient population. However, I cannot say enough how proud I am of the whole Child and Adolescent Psychiatry team for stepping up to meet this sudden yet ongoing challenge.
Historically, 12S has been a milieu-based acute psychiatric unit where patients attend therapeutic groups all day. Over the last few years, we’ve stretched to accommodate a few patients who, because of developmental delays, were unable to participate in groups, but who had an active psychiatric issue we could treat. And then, this summer, the only pediatric neuropsychiatric unit in the state (which focuses on acute stabilization of children with significant delays and concomitant behavioral issues) effectively closed its doors and the Children’s Center found itself inundated with larger numbers of these patients (often with level-3 autism) than it had ever seen before.
12S found itself taking care of patients outside of what our staffing, expertise, supplies, and built environment were equipped for, many of whom had significant aggressive behavior. But our team consistently ran toward the problem: thinking outside the box, consulting outside experts, collaborating as a multi-disciplinary team, and advocating for more support. Our team has been courageous, creative, compassionate, and hard-working as we have collectively struggled to provide safe and therapeutic care for these extremely vulnerable patients. It has not been easy. There have been growing pains, ideas that did not work as planned, and no small number of staff injuries, both physical and emotional.
But through it all, we have kept the main goal in sight: working together to provide the best care we can. There are still many needs: the State, the MHA, and JHHS all need to create sustainable supports for this often-ignored patient population. However, I cannot say enough how proud I am of the whole Child and Adolescent Psychiatry team for stepping up to meet this sudden yet ongoing challenge.