Valued Voice

WHA Information Center Data Spotlight: May is Mental Health Awareness Month

Since the start of Mental Health Awareness Month in May 1949, it has become a pillar to help address and understand mental health conditions faced by millions of Americans.
 
The WHA Information Center has made providing actionable data and information about mental health services provided in Wisconsin a priority of its services to help inform local, regional and statewide mental health planning efforts. WHA Information Center’s mental health-focused work has included developing and publishing free, publicly available dashboards of mental health service and psychiatric bed availability trends in Wisconsin hospitals, and the development of a Psychiatric Bed Locator Tool to help speed the referral of patients for inpatient, crisis stabilization and peer respite services in Wisconsin. 
 
The 10 publicly available WHA Information Center dashboards of mental health trends include data by place of service: inpatient and emergency department, as well as additional detail on primary diagnosis, admission detail, discharge detail, payer information and top primary behavioral health diagnoses. To visit these dashboards, click here.

In addition, utilizing hospital discharge data reported quarterly to WHA Information Center, the WHA Information Center offers services to analyze aggregate mental health, substance use disorder and other services trends provided in hospital locations at a more granular level for organizations seeking greater detail. New data is added quarterly, approximately four months after the end of the service quarter.  Data through Q4 2023 is currently available. For more information about custom data requests, contact WHA Information Center’s Brian Competente at bcompetente@wha.org.   
 
WHA has also created a “Did You Know?” series of brief social media posts on X (formerly Twitter) for Mental Health Awareness Month, focusing on data, policy and perspectives to help raise awareness of the complexity of mental health care challenges facing patients and providers and inform future solutions. To follow WHA’s Mental Health Awareness Month messaging on X, go to https://x.com/wihospitalassn.