The Florida Senate

394.4573  Continuity of care management system; measures of performance; reports.--

(1)  For the purposes of this section:

(a)  "Case management" means those activities aimed at assessing client needs, planning services, linking the service system to a client, coordinating the various system components, monitoring service delivery, and evaluating the effect of service delivery.

(b)  "Case manager" means an individual who works with clients, and their families and significant others, to provide case management.

(c)  "Client manager" means an employee of the department who is assigned to specific provider agencies and geographic areas to ensure that the full range of needed services is available to clients.

(d)  "Continuity of care management system" means a system that assures, within available resources, that clients have access to the full array of services within the mental health services delivery system.

(2)  The department is directed to implement a continuity of care management system for the provision of mental health care, through the provision of client and case management, including clients referred from state treatment facilities to community mental health facilities. Such system shall include a network of client managers and case managers throughout the state designed to:

(a)  Reduce the possibility of a client's admission or readmission to a state treatment facility.

(b)  Provide for the creation or designation of an agency in each county to provide single intake services for each person seeking mental health services. Such agency shall provide information and referral services necessary to ensure that clients receive the most appropriate and least restrictive form of care, based on the individual needs of the person seeking treatment. Such agency shall have a single telephone number, operating 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, where practicable, at a central location, where each client will have a central record.

(c)  Advocate on behalf of the client to ensure that all appropriate services are afforded to the client in a timely and dignified manner.

(d)  Require that any public receiving facility initiating a patient transfer to a licensed hospital for acute care mental health services not accessible through the public receiving facility shall notify the hospital of such transfer and send all records relating to the emergency psychiatric or medical condition.

(3)  The department is directed to develop and include in contracts with service providers measures of performance with regard to goals and objectives as specified in the state plan. Such measures shall use, to the extent practical, existing data collection methods and reports and shall not require, as a result of this subsection, additional reports on the part of service providers. The department shall plan monitoring visits of community mental health facilities with other state, federal, and local governmental and private agencies charged with monitoring such facilities.

(4)  The department is directed to submit a report to the Legislature, prior to April 1 of each year, outlining departmental progress towards the implementation of the minimum staffing patterns' standards in state mental health treatment facilities. The report shall contain, by treatment facility, information regarding goals and objectives and departmental performance toward meeting each such goal and objective.

History.--ss. 3, 4, 5, ch. 80-384; s. 5, ch. 84-285; s. 1, ch. 89-211; s. 5, ch. 96-169.