DHHS outlines roadmap focused on community care, workforce and ‘Mission 0’ to reduce emergency boarding

At an informational Division III Finance hearing, Commissioner Lori Weaver of the Department of Health and Human Services outlined the department’s multi-year roadmap, emphasizing community-based behavioral health, workforce stability and an initiative known as “Mission 0” to reduce emergency-department boarding for people with acute mental-health needs.

Weaver said the roadmap is intended to “tell the story of the department without having you glaze over and us go line by line,” and she asked committee members to reserve detailed dollar questions for later budget sessions. Representative Edwards, who convened the hearing, cautioned members that this will be a difficult budget cycle and said “it is our deep obligation as a finance committee to deliver a budget that stays within the available revenues.”

The department presented high-level figures to give the committee…