EmPATH Units

If you’re looking for materials from SCHA’s EmPATH Learning Collaborative sessions, those are available here.

Behavioral health crises present a significant challenge for patients, families, and emergency departments across South Carolina. Traditional hospital emergency rooms are frequently overburdened with non-life-threatening psychiatric needs, often resulting in long waits and limited access to specialized care.

To address this gap, the South Carolina Department of Health & Human Services (SCDHHS), SCHA, Caronova, and participating healthcare systems are expanding Emergency Psychiatry Assessment, Treatment, and Healing (EmPATH) units across the state—transforming the standard of care for behavioral health emergencies. 

Emergency Psychiatry Assessment, Treatment, and Healing (EmPATH) units are hospital-based “ICU” level care for patients having a behavioral health crisis. Instead of a traditional ED experience, these patients are treated in a specialized psychiatric emergency setting designed as a calm, homelike alternative to the chaotic and overstimulating standard emergency department.  

This supportive, de-escalating approach drastically reduces patient agitation, dropping the need for physical restraints and involuntary medications to almost zero. By focusing on rapid, intensive stabilization, EmPATH units resolve most crises within 24 hours, allowing roughly 75% of patients to safely return home with outpatient referrals rather than facing costly inpatient hospitalization. 

EmPATH was developed by emergency psychiatrist, Dr. Scott Zeller, and is shared in large part by Vituity, a physician-owned organization leading care delivery innovations that improve patient outcomes. 

“One in seven people goes to a hospital emergency department during a psychiatric crisis,” says Dr. Scott Zerller, who developed the EmPATH model and has propagated it with the Vituity team across the country.   

“We have seen media stories about psychiatric patients in the emergency department waiting for a transfer to an inpatient bed. This is how EmPATH units came about. The Vituity team created a new model of care and made it scalable to work in small, large, urban, and rural hospitals. EmPATH units allow more bed availability in emergency departments for non-psychiatric patients, while getting psychiatric patients into a comfortable environment, stabilized, and on a treatment plan.” 

According to a 2022 study published in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine, the EmPATH units in the study produced the following notable results:  

• Reduced ED length of stay from 16.2 hours to 4.9 hours; 

• Reduced inpatient psychiatric admissions by 53%; 

• Improved outpatient follow-up of patients from 39.4% to 63.2%; 

• Reduced 30-day psychiatric patient return to the ED by 25%; and 

• Reduced inpatient length of stay for patients admitted from EmPATH units. 

In 2025, SCDHHS awarded 13 SC hospitals funds to build or renovate EmPATH or EmPATH-like units adjacent or near hospital emergency departments (ED). As progress on EmPATH development continues across the state, SCHA is facilitating a learning collaborative that shares best practices and leads tours across the states in existing hospital EmPATH units, as well as those in development.  In addition to a learning collaborative, SCHA created an EmPATH Advisory Council and EmPATH Finance Committee comprised of SC hospitals to address topics such as reimbursement and the need for standards and metrics for measurement. 

EmPATHs or EmPATH-like units have seen over 4,000 patients in South Carolina since SCDHHS kickstarted this transformation, with an average length of stay of less than 15 hours for diagnosis such as anxiety, suicidal intentions, and depression. Patients are very commonly discharged to home with outpatient services, as EmPATHs work very closely with their local mental health and drug use agencies.  

Importantly, EmPATH sits within a full behavioral health continuum of care that spans from crisis, inpatient, residential, to outpatient care. Connection and solid partnerships with local mental health and drug use agencies are critical, and direct connection in EmPATH is common. Appropriate care across the continuum leads to reductions in unnecessary care and healthier patients.  

EmPATHs in SC can be found at: 

• AnMed Health Medical Center 
• Beaufort Memorial Hospital 
• Hampton Regional Medical Center 
• Leatherman Pavillion 
• Lexington Medical Center 
• McLeod Regional Medical Center 
• MUSC Health, Kershaw Medical Center 
• MUSC Health, Orangeburg Medical Center 
• MUSC Health, University Hospital 
• MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital 
• Prisma Health Oconee Memorial Hospital 
• Prisma Health Tuomey Hospital 
• Trident Medical Center 

For more information on EmPATH units, the Learning Collaborative, or other information about the continuum of behavioral healthcare in South Carolina, contact Melanie Matney.