Mobile Crisis Teams
Measure and improve access and service quality
Context: Mobile Crisis Teams (MCTs) are a growing form of behavioral health care in the United States. There are approximately 2,000 Mobile Crisis Teams (MCTs) nationally that support mental health crises in the field (compared with about 20,000 EMS agencies that support physical health crises). However, unlike EMS, very few MCTs currently regularly serve 911 mental health calls, and an even smaller number take these calls without police presence.
Challenges include: Mobile Crisis teams need shared quality standards that allow them to say yes to a holistic set of call types, a focus on stabilizing in place rather than transporting for involuntary evaluation, consistent funding, low-turnover staffing, short-term follow-up capability, warm handoffs to outbound referral partners, and stronger connectivity to inbound referral partners, including 911 and 988 call centers.
The Opportunity: MCTs could become a fourth branch of 911 services alongside police, fire, and EMS, providing a professional, caring response to 911 calls about mental health and substance use crises that are not immediately dangerous. This could decrease untreated mental illness, overdoses, suicides, and assaults while also avoiding unnecessary law enforcement encounters, arrests, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations.
Mobile Crisis Team Evaluation Framework
This sample framework for evaluating Mobile Crisis Teams provides initial conceptual groundwork and recommended metrics for examining:
- Quality of Care (Providing reliable help, Reducing harm, Connecting to ongoing care) and
- System Integrity (Expanding access, Resourcing for success, Accountable and improving)
Attribution: We provide editable resources so they can be maximally valuable, including adaptation to your local environment (make a copy of the Doc, then edit it). If you edit one of our resources, please provide this attribution in a footer: “Adapted from materials by Dignity Best Practices.”
Selected Resources from Partners in This Space
2025 National Guidelines for a Behavioral Health Coordinated System of Crisis Care (SAMHSA)
Alternative Emergency Response Program Development Checklist (Harvard Government Performance Lab)
Essential Metrics for Alternative Emergency Response Programs (Harvard Government Performance Lab)
Expanding First Response: A Toolkit for Community Responder Programs (Council of State Governments)
Mobile Crisis Teams: A State Planning Guide for Medicaid Financed Crisis Response Services (TAC)
Assessing the Impact of Mobile Crisis Teams: A Review of Research (IACP/ U Cincinnati)
National Survey of Mobile Crisis Teams (2022; Goldman, Looper, Odes)
Comments on these resources, or another to suggest? We would love to hear from you at contact@dignitybestpractices.org