Denver Health – De-escalation of Agitation Response Team

Denver Health was searching for ways to reduce the incidences of workplace violence against nursing and other staff members. Denver Health also sought to provide additional support/tools to staff members working with patients who have the potential to become agitated during their treatment or stay.

Towards that end, Denver Health created the De-escalation of Agitation Response Team (DART). The goals of DART are to utilize experienced clinicians to respond to agitated patients to take a clinical approach to de-escalate the incident, thus permitting security to take a supporting role in the situation.

While the DART is still in the pilot phase of the program, the team recently began responding 24/7 across hospital-based units and has seen 60 activations since inception. Early data suggests that calls to security have been reduced. Success is also predicted in reducing inequity when it comes to black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) individuals, who are at increased risk to have their agitation issues progress to police contact and incarceration.

To learn more about this program, please contact Thom Dunn, PhD, NRP, staff psychologist at [email protected].