The good news: In 2025, Los Angeles County’s psychiatric mobile response teams performed 24,000 in-person responses, lowering the numbers of those in mental distress ending up in jail.
The bad news: These teams are being bogged down in bureaucratic paperwork by private hospital ERs, who call the teams to come in, evaluate and sign off on the patients’ release or temporary 72-hour hold, taking away from their on-street treatment time — their main purpose.
In an effort to cut through this red tape, a motion advanced by Fourth District Supervisor Janice Hahn and Third District Supervisor Lindsey Horvath was approved by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Aug. 11. The action kicks off a pilot program whereby the county will train ER doctors in five non-county hospitals how to evaluate mentally-distressed patients and be granted the authority to make informed decisions on their placement without calling for county help.
The five hospitals are: Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, UCI Health in Lakewood, Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance, and UCLA West Valley Medical Center.
The less time these crisis response teams spend in patient evaluations at private hospitals, the more time they can spend responding to 988 calls for those with mental health problems, the supervisors said.
(Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
“Every hour our crisis teams spend inside an emergency room is an hour they aren’t out in the community responding to someone who is having a mental health emergency in their home or on the street,” said Hahn. “We have built up a strong alternative crisis response system, and now we need to make sure we are using those resources as effectively as possible.”
The 71 mobile mental health crisis teams spend an average of 1,100 hours every month responding to hospitals to conduct what are known as “5150 evaluations.” The evaluation determines whether a patient is a harm to others or to himself and must be kept in the hospital on a 72-hour hold, or released.
Part of the Measure J mandate passed by voters in 2020 is to reduce incarcerations by adding more interdictions by substance abuse and mental health counselors, when there’s no weapon involved or violent threat. About 49% of people in L.A. County custody suffer from mental health issues. This year, 23 people have died in county jails.
Hahn argued that these crisis response teams are making a difference by moving the needle toward that broader county goal known as the “care first, jails last” vision.
In short, by calling 911, that usually triggers a law enforcement response. In the worst-case scenario, the person at the scene is acting irrationally, and an attempt to arrest them can result in physical force or even a fatal shooting. Using 988 and mobile mental health teams in these cases have begun to move away from that scenario by offering an alternative response, Hahn said.
The shift toward alternative responses for these types of incidents is meaningful, new data shows. Between 2023 and 2025, 911 calls to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department that reported mental illness concerns declined by 16%, and arrests resulting from those calls decreased by 24%, the county reported.
Instead, calls to the county’s Department of Mental Health help line, which dispatches the mobile response teams, increased by 31% during that same time period.
Yes, but there are still some issues.
The mobile crisis teams’ response times have been slowed by having to go to 35 non-county hospital emergency rooms to assess ER patients for temporary involuntary hospitalization because these hospitals do not have personnel authorized to make those decisions. This slows the outcome for the ER patient, and reduces the crisis team’s capacity to serve those in the community, Hahn said.
“While in an ER, we shouldn’t need to take an emergency crisis response team away. This is where government gets in its own way,” said Horvath.
A new 2025 state law (Assembly Bill 416) only recently allowed emergency room doctors to become certified to initiate these holds. The pilot sends county mental health professionals already certified to train ER doctors at the five private, non-county hospitals that call on the county most often. Hahn hopes it can be done by the end of the year. Expansion to all hospitals countywide would be finished by the end of 2027, the motion reads.
“This is about making a system that is already working work even better,” said Hahn.
Kridikel Truthbey addressed the board in support of the motion. She wanted Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital to be included in the pilot. “It is definitely needed. How long will it take for this pilot program to launch is the question?,” she asked.
The motion requires county’s Department of Mental Health to report back to the Board within 120 days on how to implement the pilot and note any barriers. DMH also will provide quarterly updates and move toward expansion countywide.