Drew McSherry, President, CEO and Juliette Beeman, Chief Operating OfficerThe organization partners with hospitals to provide 24/7 rapid response behavioral health services, deploying licensed clinicians directly into emergency departments and medical floors to assess, stabilize and determine the most appropriate next level of care for patients in crisis.
The model is further defined by dedicated licensed clinicians, precision in placement decisions, deep community relationships and the ability to improve hospital throughput while guiding patients to the right level of care.
“We really stress the importance of doing an intervention versus just an assessment,” says Juliette Beeman, Chief Operating Officer. “When you’re just assessing, it can become very transactional. What we train our clinicians to do is take the time to understand the person’s story and what led them there.”
That shift defines how CPR operates inside hospital systems. Patients are not only evaluated for risk but stabilized in the moment, allowing clinicians to make more informed decisions about whether an individual requires inpatient psychiatric care, structured outpatient support or community-based resources. The objective is the right placement, often in the least restrictive setting that can safely support the individual.
Intervention as a Clinical Operating Model
Assessment captures symptoms at a point in time. Intervention changes the conditions under which those symptoms are understood. CPR’s clinicians are trained to create that shift during every encounter.
A patient arriving in crisis often presents with heightened distress, fragmented information and limited ability to articulate underlying issues. Standard evaluation tools remain useful, yet they offer only part of the picture. CPR’s clinicians work to stabilize the patient first, even if only incrementally, allowing for clearer communication and more accurate clinical insight.
“Sometimes, if you’re just doing an assessment and someone is still in crisis mode, the answers you’re getting aren’t the full picture,” says Drew McSherry, President and CEO. “If you can stabilize, even slightly, you can get to the core of what’s really going on and make a better decision about where they need to go next.”
Clinical decision-making integrates structured risk tools with environmental factors such as support systems, housing stability and access to care. Patients who can be safely supported outside inpatient settings are identified more precisely, while those requiring higher levels of care are transferred without delay.
Dedicated Clinicians Built for High-Acuity Environments
Hospitals often rely on general medical staff to manage behavioral health cases alongside other responsibilities. CPR introduces a different structure. Licensed behavioral health clinicians are deployed specifically for crisis response, operating as a focused extension of hospital teams.
“One of the things that really sets us apart is that we have dedicated licensed clinicians. This is what they do,” McSherry says.
Specialization allows clinicians to navigate the behavioral health continuum with greater confidence. Determining appropriate levels of care requires both clinical expertise and familiarity with available options. CPRs clinicians are trained for that level of decision-making, supported by deep community relationships that strengthen placement precision.
That clinical infrastructure is further strengthened through the leadership of Tracey Oppenheim, MD, Chief Medical Officer, a triple board-certified child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist who provides senior psychiatric oversight for some of the most clinically complex behavioral health cases encountered in hospital settings. Beyond guiding clinical standards and supporting frontline teams, Dr. Oppenheim works directly with hospitals on high-acuity and medically complex cases involving severe mental illness, co-occurring medical conditions, pediatric crises and complicated disposition decisions. Her active involvement helps ensure patients receive precise, safe and clinically appropriate care in real time. This frontline capability is reinforced by a broader clinical support structure. Clinicians have access to peer-to-peer consultation, experienced leadership and senior psychiatric expertise at all times, ensuring complex decisions are not made in isolation.
Clinician selection is structured with the same emphasis on judgment and consistency. Candidates move through a multi-stage evaluation process designed to assess both technical capability and suitability for crisis work. The role requires composure under pressure, sound judgment and the ability to engage patients at vulnerable moments. Training reinforces those attributes while establishing consistent clinical standards across the organization.
Supporting Throughput through Coordinated Response
In many hospitals, the bottleneck is not deciding what care a patient needs, but helping that care happen quickly.
Behavioral health cases often create delays because transfers require coordination, documentation and communication across multiple entities. Gaps in that process can leave patients waiting in emergency departments long after a disposition has been determined.
We really stress the importance of doing an intervention versus just an assessment.
The care team functions as an operational control layer, managing both voluntary and involuntary transfers, coordinating documentation and escalating delays in real time. They maintain continuous oversight of cases in progress and ensure that clinical decisions translate into timely action.
Once a clinical decision is made, the team supports transfer logistics, monitors cases in progress and escalates barriers quickly when delays emerge.
The impact is both clinical and operational. Patients are evaluated, stabilized and moved more efficiently, reducing unnecessary emergency department boarding while helping improve hospital throughput.
Community Integration as a Decision Advantage
What happens after the emergency room often determines whether the crisis resolves.
Effective crisis response depends on knowing what options exist beyond the hospital. CPR has built deep relationships across the behavioral health continuum, from inpatient facilities and residential programs to outpatient providers, shelters and seriously mentally ill support services.
Access to that network changes how decisions are made. Patients presenting with suicidal ideation, for example, are not automatically escalated to inpatient care. With proper safety planning, support systems and trusted outpatient pathways, clinicians can often support discharge safely into the community, reflecting CPR’s emphasis on achieving the right level of care in the least restrictive way possible.
-
One of the things that really sets us apart is that we have dedicated licensed clinicians. This is what they do.
These partnerships are actively maintained and vetted, ensuring alignment in care standards and reliability across providers rather than functioning as passive referral networks.
One case illustrates the impact. An individual experiencing homelessness had become a frequent visitor to the emergency department, presenting repeatedly with mental health and substance use challenges. Through CPR’s intervention, the patient was connected to the organization’s Transitional Care Program, placed into a residential treatment program and evaluated for eligibility in a seriously mentally ill support program. Repeat emergency department utilization declined significantly, reflecting improved stability and continuity of care.
Extending Crisis Response beyond the Emergency Room
Operational discipline supports this model, but always in service of care delivery.
Internal credentialing, eligibility and billing capabilities help remove administrative barriers for both hospitals and patients, while clinical support structures reinforce consistency across cases. More importantly, they help sustain a model built around getting patients to the right care quickly and responsibly.
This infrastructure enables CPR to identify coverage, support enrollment where needed and ensure appropriate billing pathways, reducing financial friction for both hospitals and patients while improving system efficiency.
Demand for behavioral health services continues to rise, placing sustained pressure on hospital systems. CPR has expanded across multiple regions while maintaining a standardized approach grounded in intervention-led care, placement precision and coordinated execution.
Technology plays a supporting role in that expansion, helping streamline coordination while preserving focus on clinician judgment and patient interaction.
The emphasis remains on improving responsiveness without changing the core model.
Growth has been shaped by the same principles that define day-to-day operations: intervene first, place thoughtfully, move patients efficiently and build around community-connected care.
Crisis Preparation & Recovery’s recognition as the Top Hospital Rapid Response Solutions 2026 is grounded in an operating model that combines intervention over assessment, dedicated clinicians, placement precision and measurable throughput impact. By embedding clinical intervention, real-time coordination and community-integrated placement into a single operating system, CPR demonstrates a model that improves both care outcomes and hospital efficiency at scale.
Advancing Behavioral Health Response in Hospital Emergency Settings
Hospital leaders continue to face a persistent challenge at the intersection of emergency care and behavioral health. Patients presenting in psychiatric crisis often enter systems designed for acute medical stabilization rather than nuanced mental health evaluation. This mismatch creates delays in disposition, prolonged emergency department stays and heightened risk for both patients and care teams. Effective rapid response models in this space are defined less by speed alone and more by the quality of clinical judgment, the ability to determine appropriate care pathways and the integration of hospital workflows with broader community support systems.
A meaningful distinction emerges in how response teams approach patient interaction. Models that rely on brief, checklist-driven evaluations tend to default toward conservative decisions, often escalating individuals to inpatient settings even when alternative pathways may be appropriate. A more effective approach centers on deeper clinical engagement that stabilizes the individual in the moment while uncovering the underlying drivers of the crisis. This allows decision-makers to move beyond surface-level risk indicators and arrive at dispositions that reflect both clinical need and available support structures.
Equally important is the breadth of knowledge surrounding local behavioral health resources. Emergency departments do not operate in isolation, yet many response frameworks treat them as endpoints rather than entry points into a continuum of care. Teams that maintain active relationships with outpatient providers, residential programs, crisis centers and social services are better positioned to guide patients toward the least restrictive and most suitable level of care. This not only improves patient outcomes but also reduces unnecessary admissions and alleviates pressure on hospital capacity.
Throughput remains a critical concern for executives, particularly during periods of high demand. Behavioral health patients often occupy beds for extended durations due to delays in evaluation or placement. Rapid response solutions that operate continuously and can assess, stabilize and transition patients efficiently contribute directly to improved patient flow. The impact is not limited to operational metrics; it also shapes patient experience, reducing time spent in high-stress environments and enabling faster access to appropriate care settings.
Consistency in clinical decision-making also depends on the support structure behind frontline clinicians. Even experienced professionals encounter complex cases that require additional perspective. Systems that provide access to senior clinical leadership and specialized expertise enable more confident and informed decisions, particularly in high-risk situations. Standardized assessment tools play a role, yet their value is realized only when combined with comprehensive clinical interpretation and individualized understanding of each patient’s circumstances.
Crisis Preparation & Recovery exemplifies this integrated approach within hospital rapid response environments. It deploys licensed behavioral health clinicians trained to move beyond assessment into active intervention, allowing patients to stabilize before final disposition decisions are made. Its deep familiarity with community resources enables placement into appropriate care settings rather than default escalation. Continuous staffing supports timely evaluations, which helps hospitals reduce delays and improve patient flow. The organization reinforces frontline work with experienced clinical leadership and psychiatric expertise, ensuring that complex cases receive informed guidance. Its model extends beyond the emergency encounter through programs that support patients after discharge, addressing underlying factors that drive repeat visits. This alignment of clinical depth, system awareness and continuity of care positions it as a strong choice for hospitals aiming to improve both outcomes and operational efficiency.
...Read more
