Boarding for Youth Mental Health Conditions: How Can Hospitalists Be Part of the Solution?

There is a clearly established and alarming increase in the prevalence of mental health disorders impacting our children and adolescents with a corresponding increase in the number of youth presenting with mental health crises to emergency departments (EDs) in need of hospitalization.^1–4  Coupled with a lack of pediatric and adolescent inpatient psychiatry beds and providers, these trends have resulted in an increase in boarding in EDs and inpatient medical or surgical units.^5–7  The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exacerbated and potentiated these concerns, leading to a joint statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Children’s Hospital Association declaring a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health in October 2021.^8–10  Shortly after this declaration, in December of 2021, the US Surgeon General issued an advisory entitled “Protecting Youth Mental Health” further defining...