Managing Suicidal Patients in the Emergency Department

Scott Zeller, MD is Vice President for Acute Psychiatry at the multistate multispecialty physician group partnership Vituity; assistant professor at University of California-Riverside School of Medicine; Past President of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry; Past Chair of the National Coalition on Psychiatric Emergencies; and former Chief of Psychiatric Emergency Services for the Alameda Health System in Oakland, CA, where he developed the “Alameda Model.” He has authored multiple textbooks, book chapters, and peer-reviewed articles, has lectured in-person in every continent on Earth except Antarctica, and is known as the co-inventor of Emergency Telepsychiatry and the creator of the EmPATH Unit (Emergency Psychiatry Assessment, Treatment and Healing Unit) model for behavioral health emergency care. He led Project BETA (Best Practices in the Evaluation and Treatment of Agitation), which produced guidelines that have revolutionized the care approach to agitated individuals around the world. He was awarded the 2015 USA Doctor of the Year by the National Council for Behavioral Health, the 2019 California Hospital Association Heerman Award for making a landmark contribution to improving California healthcare, in 2020 was named one of the “ten most influential people in healthcare design” by Healthcare Design Magazine.  

Kimberly Lopez is the Vituity VP Of operations. Kimberly is a registered nurse with more than 20years’ experience working in healthcare. In her role as VP Kimberly as supported the implementations of Empath units, serving as the subject matter expert on Ppliciy and Procedure, education, workflow and preparing sites for survey. Kimberly has a variety of experience throughout service lines including ED Educator, Observation unit manager and educator, as well as director of clinical operations. She received a BSN from the University of Phoenix and a master in nursing administration from California State Dominquez Hills in Carson, CA.

Dr. Seth Thomas is an emergency physician and Director of Quality and Performance at Vituity, a physician-owned and led, medical partnership. He earned his medical degree from Albany Medical College in New York and completed his residency training in emergency medicine at Loma Linda University Medical Center. Dr. Thomas lives and works clinically near Sacramento, California and has special interest in facilitating improvement in Emergency Department operations, flow and efficiency. Dr. Thomas also has a passion for emergency psychiatry and as a result, dedicates much of his time on the development and implementation of local, regional and national solutions to help address challenges involving medical clearance, risk assessment and ED rapid treatment algorithms. Dr. Thomas is responsible for leading the development and implementation teams for both Emergency Psychiatric Intervention (EPI) and SMART medical clearance.

Patti Cordle is a Senior Operations Consultant for Vituity, supporting both EM and Psychiatric service lines. She has an extensive Nursing background which includes Administration, Education, and over 2 ½ decades in Psychiatry. In her career, she has held several positions as Director of Education, and more recently served as Adjunct Professor for the Mental Health component of LIU’s Nursing program in New York. Patti is board certified in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing and has a passion for seeing improvements in the care of this population. As such, she has felt very privileged to be involved in Vituity’s EPI program and EmPATH consulting efforts.