High referral success rates in a crisis center.

The standard method of referral used by workers at the Cleveland Suicide Prevention Center is to call the facility or therapist to make an appointment for the client and then to follow up to see if the client kept the appointment. Three different patient samples were studied to find what percentage of patients were actually seen at the resource to which they were referred. The success rates were 69.5%, 63.4%, and 62.3%. The authors review some of the literature on referral rates and report that their rates are significantly higher than those reported by screening agencies that merely direct clients to another resource.