Patients, health care providers and in-house physicians now have a streamlined, single point of entry for psychiatric inpatient referrals at UF Health Shands Psychiatric Hospital and UF Health Shands Hospital. The 24-hour intake system has been revamped, and the resulting Inpatient Psychiatry Intake Center, or IPIC, is helping to improve customer service and efficient care delivery.

“When people are in a crisis, they need to be able to access the most appropriate level of care as quickly as possible,” said Marina Cecchini, M.P.A., UF Health Shands Rehab Hospital CEO and former UF Health Shands Psychiatric Hospital administrator. “The IPIC is an important part of integrating our system to meet patient needs.”

The IPIC provides callers with a single access point to admit patients to the psychiatric medical unit at UF Health Shands Hospital and all five units at UF Health Shands Psychiatric Hospital, including the child/adolescent unit, the adult addiction unit, two adult inpatient psychiatric units and the geriatric psychiatry unit. IPIC staff, working with psychiatrists and addiction medicine physicians, will help get patients to the most suitable inpatient setting to meet their needs.

Regina Bussing, M.D., UF College of Medicine psychiatry chair, said UF Health offers a full continuum of psychiatric inpatient services, including a psychiatric medical unit for patients requiring complex psychiatric and medical treatment at the same time.

She said, “The IPIC will make it easy to access the best level of inpatient care with one phone call.”