Timely Access to 
Behavioral Health Services

A state’s behavioral health administration managing a $3.4B system serving 330,000+ individuals annually needed to transform how crisis and inpatient referrals are coordinated across its provider network. Behavioral health patients were boarding in emergency departments for an average of 20 hours waiting for placement — with pediatric patients experiencing delays twice as long. Across 1,600+ licensed psychiatric beds statewide, only ~85% were staffed at any given time, and no real-time visibility existed into bed availability across facilities. Referral workflows were manual and fragmented; provider coverage was concentrated in urban areas while rural regions faced acute shortages. The state required a cloud-based bed registry and referral system to connect individuals in behavioral health crisis to timely, appropriate care.

NXT is serving as the Program Management Office, bringing structure, delivery discipline, and deep expertise in healthcare systems, interoperability, and business process design. The PMO provides governance, milestone sequencing, and executive-level reporting while actively delivering:

• Overseeing the implementation of a scalable, cloud-based bed registry and referral platform
• Translators enabling effective communication channels between the State and Vendor teams
• Current state assessments documenting existing workflows and system gaps
• Business process engineering to streamline referral coordination and care pathways
• Data interoperability architecture to connect providers across the behavioral health ecosystem