Pledge to Connect is a collaborative initiative aimed at connecting emergency department (ED) patients with behavioral health (BH) needs to timely outpatient care.

Pledge to Connect was piloted over two years by the Camden Coalition in partnership with four regional health systems and two Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs), embedding CCBHC staff into South Jersey EDs to meet patients at bedside and connect them to ongoing care and services.

Collaborating across organizations to share data and workflows is hard, particularly in the stressful, highly regulated ED environment. Our implementation guide shares how we made this pilot a success, from identifying a team to clearing administrative hurdles to data collection and continuous quality improvement.

This implementation guide is intended to be used by program managers, administrators, leaders, and advocates that want to develop a similar program in their region. The guide includes programmatic details and tools that can be replicated or modified to the needs of various communities. It also includes important lessons learned that we hope will help others in their efforts to improve behavioral health programs and outcomes.

List of Pledge to Connect partners:

• Acenda Integrated Health
• Cooper University Health Care
• Inspira Health
• Jefferson Health
• Oaks Integrated Care
• Virtua Health