Better Access, Better Data, Stronger Behavioral Health Care Coordination
Sep 28, 2026
Even when a behavioral health patient is ready for the next step in their care plan, the path out of the hospital isn’t always straightforward.
Maybe they need a behavioral health placement. Maybe substance use treatment is part of the picture. Maybe housing, transportation, developmental disabilities, or other complex needs are making discharge more difficult.
Expanding the support
Those challenges are why the 211 Care Coordination program, supported by funding from the Maryland Department of Health’s Behavioral Health Administration, is expanding to support inpatient adolescent behavioral health patients while continuing its work with hospital emergency departments.
For hospital teams, complex discharge cases can quickly become a search across systems, providers, and programs. That’s where 211 Care Coordination comes in, working alongside hospital staff to identify appropriate behavioral health resources, address challenges affecting discharge and placement, and connect patients to the next level of care.
That added coordination can help patients move forward sooner and reduce unnecessary hospital stays.
Behind every referral is a patient with a story, and a hospital team trying to figure out what comes next. Often, these patients are adolescents.
Adolescents receiving inpatient behavioral health care can face extended stays when appropriate placements or community-based supports are difficult to find.
The expansion also creates an opportunity to learn more about what hospitals see every day, including the cases they can resolve internally.
Cutting Referral Response Times
When a patient is ready for the next step in care, every day matters. But finding the right placement, treatment, or community support can take time, leaving some patients in the hospital longer than necessary.
The Care Coordination team helps hospital partners move those cases forward faster. Referral response times have been cut in half with the implementation of ConnectCare, a patient referral system that gets Care Coordinators involved sooner by seamlessly integrating hospital care with community-based resources.
From there, the team works alongside hospital staff to identify behavioral health resources, troubleshoot discharge and placement challenges, and help connect patients with the services they need next.
Who The Program Helps
Care Coordination supports a wide range of complex behavioral health cases, including patients with mental health conditions, substance use disorders, developmental disabilities, and co-occurring needs.
Hospital teams can refer cases involving difficulty finding an appropriate placement, challenges accessing treatment or recovery services, delays related to housing or home safety, and other factors that may affect a patient’s transition to the next level of care.
Capturing Data-Only Stories
Not every patient requires active Care Coordination support. Hospitals often navigate complex cases on their own. But those cases can still help us understand gaps in Maryland’s public behavioral health system. Through data-only referrals, hospitals can share information about cases they manage independently, including:
- Behavioral health overstays
- Challenges affecting discharge or placement
- Services that are difficult to access
- Gaps in behavioral health and community-based resources
Every referral helps build a clearer picture of the challenges hospitals and patients are facing. Data-only referrals add to that picture.
Together, these referrals help us better understand:
- Where are patients waiting?
- What services are difficult to find?
- What barriers are keeping people in hospitals longer than necessary?
- Gaps in behavioral health and community-based resources
Over time, that information can help hospitals, state partners, and behavioral health organizations identify patterns, understand where additional capacity may be needed, and make better-informed decisions about how to strengthen Maryland’s behavioral health system.
By combining faster Care Coordination with better statewide data, Maryland can support patients today while building a clearer picture of what the behavioral health system needs next.
MdInfoNet is a public-benefit 501(c)(3) nonprofit and state-designated administrator of the 211 system in Maryland. Kenyn Benjamin is the president and CEO, building a more connected health and human services ecosystem using leading technology and comprehensive information to inform, connect, and drive data-driven decisions across the state that better connect agencies, systems, and people.