What’s happening: Earlier this week, emergency care professionals from across California gathered in Newport Beach for a high-impact day of learning, storytelling, and collaborative problem-solving.
What else to know: Attendees at the 2025 Emergency Services Forum explored some of the most pressing issues facing emergency departments (EDs) today — particularly the growing challenge of managing behavioral health cases in acute care settings.
Behavioral health continues to drive ED overcrowding, placing significant stress on clinical teams. This was a focus of the morning sessions, during which speakers shared an overview of statewide initiatives aimed at relieving the burden on EDs, highlighting programs designed to divert patients with behavioral health non-emergency conditions to more appropriate treatment settings.
Discussions also focused on the need for stronger, more integrated partnerships among hospitals, county agencies, and community-based organizations to ensure continuity of care beyond the ED. A particularly powerful session featured how an ED director’s repeated experiences in hospital EDs with her child gave her unique insight into the system’s opportunities — especially related to emergency care for young people in behavioral crisis. Her story underscored the importance of empathy, communication, and thinking outside the box to best serve patients.
During the second half of the forum, attendees:
- Received an update from the California Emergency Medical Services Authority on the latest regulatory changes and state-level emergency medical services initiatives
- Heard from a panel of chief nursing officers about the daily realities in their EDs, including persistent overcapacity issues, the rise in workplace violence, and other concerns around ensuring their hospital is providing the highest quality of care while also keeping their staff safe
- Received a timely refresher on the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, including the law’s core requirements, how recent legislation could affect hospital protocols and patient access moving forward, and how to maintain regulatory compliance while balancing evolving patient needs
