Job Description

Each day is a fresh opportunity to impact the lives of our patients, families, co-workers, and communities. We promote excellence, optimism, respect, and professional growth. If you are looking for a rewarding and positive workplace, look no further than in your own community! 

Job Summary: Provides psychiatric crisis intervention to assess and enhance a client’s mental and emotional stability, provides mental health evaluations, and initiates 72 hours when appropriate. When performing psychiatric evaluations, provides support to and assistance in problem resolution, assesses mental status, and potential for grave disability, determines suicidal and homicidal potential, and the level of care required for treatment for each individual case, then coordinates the provision of needed services. Must have knowledge of community resources and agencies providing support service of the mentally ill.  Must have understanding and knowledge of medical terminology, pharmacology, and fundamentals of nursing care, general behavior and psychiatric procedures.  Reports to the Behavioral Health Unit Clinical Coordinator.  Supports the mission of the hospital by providing services to the community with dignity and distinction.

Essential Functions:

• Provides direct patient care to a specified patient population
• Prioritizes patient care based on physical, psychiatric, and psychosocial assessment
• Analyses crisis situations in a prompt and concise manner
• Responds to requests for PET evaluations by making an initial phone contact with person making request for evaluation, confirming the location of the client, the need for service, and gives and estimated time of arrival to perform the evaluation
• For offsite evaluations, arrives on scene to evaluate a client in a timely manner, usually 30-45 minutes, and keeps all parties informed of any delays in their response time
• Performs psychiatric evaluation, assesses mental status and level of care required to meet the individual needs of the client and facilitates the provision of needed services
• Consistently utilizes LPS established guidelines and documents probable cause of the client having a mental disorder on the 5150 forms
• Collaborates with Intake staff regarding admission process as needed
• Consults with the Psychiatrist regarding the final disposition, on a as needed basis
• Consistently maintains an open line of communication with the Intake staff throughout the evaluation process and informs them of the outcome of every call
• Utilizes the appropriate channels of communication when reporting problems, usual events, and/or consumer complaints encountered during the course of work
• Assumes responsibility to maintain forms and equipment needed to adequately perform as a Clinician on a mobile crisis team
• Appropriately completes the Log of Request Form, logging all requests for PET evaluations completed for each shift
• Consistently files Consults and 5150’s completed
• Demonstrates the ability to support Emergency Department throughout of BHU patients in a timely manner and other duties deemed necessary by the facility to facilitate a smooth transition of care into the BHU Units.
• Reports directly to the BHU Director

Qualifications:

• Skills: Must be approved through the hospital’s Medical Staff Allied Health Section
• Meet requirement and maintain in good standing of hospital’s professional staff
• Must have knowledge of general psychiatric emergency intervention, and laws and regulations related to patient’s rights, voluntary or involuntary treatment and criteria for commitment
• Education/Experience: Minimum of three years acute in-patient psychiatric experience
• Licensure/Certification: Current BLS certification, current MAB or AB 508 Certification, current LPS Designation (with a passing score of 80) by the authority of Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health Service

Specific Physical/Working Demands:  Continuous standing, sitting, and walking, continuous use of bilateral extremities, ability to manage potentially aggressive situations, manual dexterity for us of equipment and instruments weighing 50 pounds or more, with assistance, pushing of wheelchairs and gurneys.  Hearing and visual acuity to observe and distinguish changes in patient’s condition, to drive safely and be geographically knowledgeable. Frequent exposure to noise, cold, and heat.  Occasional exposure to bloodborne pathogens, chemicals, general cleaning chemicals. 

ADA CONSIDERATION: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Such accommodations must be requested by the employee/applicant in order to be considered.

LANGUAGE SKILLS: Must be able to read, analyze, and interpret common scientific and technical information, and to be easily understood through verbal communication in the English language. Must be able to prepare documentation in a manner that conforms to prescribed style and format, and to respond to common inquiries or complaints from customers, regulatory agencies, or members of the business community. Bilingual skills (Spanish) preferred.

MATHEMATICAL SKILLS: Must be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide in all units of measure, using whole numbers, common fractions, and decimals. Ability to perform these operations using units of weight measurement, volume, and distance. Ability to perform upper level mathematical operations, including algebra and geometry, frequent distribution, determination of test reliability and validity, analysis of variance, correlation techniques, sampling theory and factor analysis.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS: Is occasionally required to stand; walk; sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel; reach with hands and arms; stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl; talk or hear; and taste or smell. The employee is regularly required to lift, push and/or pull weights in excess of 10 pounds. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move more than 100 pounds, with assistance. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and ability to adjust focus.

WORK ENVIRONMENT: Is occasionally exposed to toxic or caustic chemicals, risk of electrical shock, and vibration. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.