For years, the New York State Office of Mental Health has maintained a detailed database for sharing the psychiatric histories of people who rely on the social safety net — a tool that, when used correctly, can ensure the state’s most vulnerable people receive adequate care. But the database, known as PSYCKES, was not consistently used by one of the most crucial pieces of that safety net: hospitals, which have sometimes discharged homeless mentally ill people without using the tool to communicate with shelters and care teams that provide outpatient treatment. In some cases, those discharges preceded subway shovings and other random acts of violence by the homeless people after their illnesses went untreated. The state issued the guidance late last month after receiving questions from The New York Times, which was preparing to publish an investigation that revealed preventable institutional breakdowns of homeless shelters, hospitals, specialized treatment teams and other organizations. The breakdowns preceded more than 90 acts of violence in the past decade, The Times found.

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Organizations: New York State, of Mental Health, The New York Times, Times