Aligned for Impact in 2024 & Expanding in 2025

As we close out a successful 2024, the Ascend team is excited to share our progress in supporting behavioral health organizations through data-driven solutions.

Our efforts this past year have laid a solid foundation for expanding our impact in 2025. Several key projects are underway to help strengthen crisis response and care coordination across Ohio.

2024 Highlights

Transforming Behavioral Health Outcomes: QRT Retrospective Study

This year, we completed a comprehensive five-year retrospective study in partnership with Public Health - Dayton & Montgomery County (PHDMC) and Cordata Healthcare Innovations . The Quick Response Team (QRT) project involved integrating real-time hospital data into Cordata's care coordination platform and notifying PHDMC’s QRT peer supporters when individuals were admitted to the emergency department for substance use crises.?

The study results* demonstrated significant improvements in post-crisis outcomes, including:

• Reduced hospital utilization and total charges
• Fewer interactions with law enforcement
• Reduced death rate

Most notably, the study demonstrated a significant reduction in total charges—an average decrease of 40% per patient who engaged with QRT at least twice. This outcome is especially critical given that 88% of the study population was covered by Medicaid and Medicare or uninsured. It highlights the potential for substantial cost savings in publicly funded healthcare systems by expanding services such as QRT.

* If you'd like to receive a one-pager on the study, please contact Josh Gratsch .

Crisis Notifications: Expanding Real-Time Crisis Response

In 2018, we developed a Crisis Notifications system that generates secure, real-time email alerts when individuals with behavioral health or substance use-related crises are admitted to hospital emergency departments. Over the past two years, we've worked hard to improve the solution. It integrates with the state Health Information Exchange (HIE) and can be scaled to other regions as partnerships are developed. In 2024, we created an outcomes survey to begin collecting the results of outreach engagements.

With Crisis Notifications operating in six counties, we are actively working to expand the system across the state, thanks to key partnerships and grant funding from the OneOhio Recovery Foundation driving these efforts.

2025: Expanding Solutions & Partnerships

New Crisis Notifications Implementations

In early 2025, we will begin implementing the Crisis Notifications system in partnership with several other local recovery boards:

• Muskingum Area Counties Mental Health & Recovery Services: This project covers Genesis Healthcare System and OhioHealth Southeastern hospitals in a six-county region. It will enhance care coordination and connection to services following hospital discharges.
• Union County Mental Health & Recovery Board: This engagement includes hospital data acquisition and implementing notifications across Memorial Health, OhioHealth, and Mary Rutan Hospital as Union County designs and develops its crisis response infrastructure.
• Montgomery County Dayton Regional Pathways HUB: In partnership with the Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association , this project will use Crisis Notifications to coordinate care for pregnant women experiencing behavioral health crises and enhance timely referrals

All three expansion initiatives are funded under OneOhio Recovery Foundation grants and are expected to improve crisis response and long-term recovery outcomes. Ascend is currently working to identify more partners to pilot the solution.

Safety Net Portal Development

Looking ahead, we are also advancing the development of a concept we call the Safety Net Portal. This centralized platform connects data across the behavioral health continuum of care, aiming to fill critical information gaps by providing providers and organizations with a holistic view of patients' system-level interactions.

We have completed the discovery, requirements gathering, and prototyping phases through 2024 and are now planning for a transition to development. Once operational, the Safety Net Portal will further enable data-driven decision-making, ensuring that individuals in crisis receive timely and coordinated care.

QRT Outcomes Presentation

We’ll attend several conferences throughout 2025 to present the data from the QRT research. Our goal is to raise awareness around the effectiveness of QRTs and other peer-led crisis response teams as we continue collaborating with state-level stakeholders to expand community crisis response services.

Casey Smith, MPH, CHES? presented alongside our partner colleagues at the Ohio Deflection Association Conference this month and the PAARI 2025 National Law Enforcement Summit in February.

Looking Forward

At Ascend, our mission remains clear: to leverage data and technology to create meaningful, measurable change in behavioral health. As we expand our solutions and partnerships, we look forward to collaborating with stakeholders across Ohio to build more connected communities.

If you're interested in learning more about our work or partnering with us on future initiatives, feel free to reach out or follow us here on LinkedIn or email us at?[email protected].

Together, we’re aligned for impact.