In March the Interim Supervisor for MedSurg, received a phone call from a former patient, who initially was expressing homicidal ideation. I was in their office at the time along with the MedSurg Manager. She stayed on the phone with the patient while she calmly helped him de-escalate. Meanwhile, she wrote down the health and human services phone number she knew by memory on a post it for us to call. She gave us another post it with his address and phone number that she retrieved from EPIC while continuing to interact calmly with the patient. Health and Human Services directed us to call the police, so I called from my office. They sent an officer, and our MedSurg Manager did such a great job encouraging him to talk to the officer and tell him what he was feeling. By the time she was done talking with him, he already had calmed down significantly and stated he was not homicidal and wanted to talk to someone so he didn't do anything bad.
The visit went well as the officer called me back. The patient was going to go inside and watch a movie. He apparently had a visit by police earlier in the day when he was intoxicated. Melissa documented the phone call in EPIC. She was wonderful.