Adding needed mental health beds: MetroHealth to open $42M behavioral health hospital in Cleveland Heights.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – While some local health systems are struggling, Metro Health System is expanding with the region’s largest investment in behavioral health in decades.

Opening Saturday, Oct. 8, the $42 million, 112-bed MetroHealth Cleveland Heights Behavioral Health Hospital is expected to serve about 5,000 patients. Such as bipolar disorder, depression, addiction, mood disorder and dual diagnosis or mental illness and substance abuse for one year.

Safety features, such as lockable doors, reduce injuries. And the behavioral health hospital will have special units to treat teenagers and the elderly.

The opening of the Behavioral Health Hospital comes a week ago MetroHealth will open its new 11-story Glick Center on the main campus..

The Cleveland Heights expansion will increase the number of psychiatric beds available in Cuyahoga County, but not enough to fully address the problem of too few beds and too many. Psychiatric services at St. Vincent’s Charity Medical Center have been exacerbated by the impending closure.

Cuyahoga County is on track to have the most fatal overdoses this year, and the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need for mental health counseling. In the year In 2018, nearly 5 million people visited the emergency room with mental, behavioral, and neurodevelopmental disorders. US Centers for Disease Control and prevention.

Local behavioral health professionals praised MetroHealth’s commitment to mental health.

“It’s amazing. I mean, that’s the point. That’s great, says Dr. Leo Pozuello, chair of psychiatry and psychology at the Cleveland Clinic. “Not having an adequate number of inpatient beds in the city of Cleveland is hindering the care our patients receive.”

The opening comes as another hospital is about to close.

However, the loss of St. Vincent’s inpatient psychiatric beds and psychiatric emergency room will put additional pressure on MetroHealth to care for the unexpected.

St. Vincent’s will close its inpatient care, surgery and emergency room services on Nov. 15, instead offering health and outpatient services at its location south of Cleveland.

St. Vincent’s currently has 20 inpatient psychiatric beds and 15 detox beds and will serve about 1,000 psychiatric patients by 2021, the hospital said. The psychiatric emergency department, staffed by nurses specializing in psychiatric assessment and counseling, serves approximately 3,000 patients annually.

“We were confident. (Cleveland Clinic) Lutheran and St. Vincent to take care of the western part, said Dr. Akram Boutros, CEO of Metro Health. “Now we have to figure out how to increase services.”

Reflecting MetroHealth’s commitment to addressing the social issues of health, Boutros said the hospital located its new hospital near poor neighborhoods where people see more police than health care providers.

“How do I tell someone from East Cleveland to get on the bus and come to (West Side’s) MetroHealth for care?” Boutros said. “So if we were to do it[build a large psychiatric unit]we would do it somewhere else.”

Lack of psychiatric beds in Greater Cleveland

According to national guidelines cited by MetroHealth, Cuyahoga County has 220 fewer beds than needed to fully meet the needs of residents. Economic pressures and labor shortages contribute to supply shortages.

Many nonprofit hospitals do not have psychiatric departments because those departments often operate at a loss, even with reimbursement from private insurance, Medicaid and Medicare, Boutros said.

“The cost of providing behavioral health and addiction services is more than worth it,” Boutros said. “It’s very difficult to make a living for behavioral health hospitals.”

The clinic, a leading provider of mental health inpatient beds in Northeast Ohio, has 269 inpatient psychiatric beds in its health system and 16 chemical dependency beds at Cleveland Clinic Lutheran Hospital.

However, clinic patients sometimes wait up to 36 hours to get into a behavioral health unit, Pozzullo said.

The University Hospitals system has 101 psychiatric beds and no toxic or substance abuse beds.

Highland Springs Hospital, a private hospital with facilities in Highland Hills and Solon, and six state-run regional psychiatric hospitals provide care for these patients. There are no state-run psychiatric hospitals in Cuyahoga County.

Many beds in nonprofit hospitals are left empty due to a shortage of mental health care providers.

About 15% of the clinic’s psychiatric beds are unused because of staffing problems, Pozzullo said.

Cuyahoga County has approximately 450 psychiatrists and addiction treatment specialists. Behavioral health workforce tracking Prepared by the University of Washington in Washington, DC

In the year In 2019, nearly half of Cuyahoga County residents had to travel outside the county to receive inpatient behavioral health care, according to MetroHealth.

He said underpayments and workloads make it difficult to retain mental health workers. Scott Osiecki, CEO Alcohol, drug addiction and mental health services Cuyahoga County Board.

“It’s hard work, it’s stressful and we need people 24 hours a day,” Oziecki said. You can make more money working at McDonald’s or Walmart.

Metro Health, anticipating staffing crunches, will standardize its new hospital units over the next several months as it hires staff. The institution It is planned to fully deploy its 225 employees by mid-2023, Boutros said.

The system expects to hire more St. Vincent Behavioral Health nurses. “The sooner the workers are hired, the faster we open,” Boutros said.

In the behavioral health hospital

Connected to Severance Town Center next to MetroHealth Cleveland Heights Medical Center, the three-story, 79,000-square-foot hospital features large windows overlooking peaceful woods, soothing blue hues and spaces for communal dining.

The behavioral health clinic is designed to encourage patients to leave their rooms and join others for a meal, watch TV or play basketball.

These activities teach people with mental illness how to function independently despite their mental condition.

“If you’re depressed, it takes a lot of energy to get out of bed,” says Dr. Julia Bruner, senior vice president of behavioral health and correctional medicine at MetroHealth. “Often you need not only medicine, but also a comfortable environment to encourage you to do it.”

The hospital has five wards: Gyropsychology, Dual diagnosis, mood disorders, thought disorders and adolescents. Group therapy and other programs meet the unique needs of those diverse patient populations.

GeroPsych refers to mental conditions aggravated by delusions or other dementia. A dual diagnosis unit treats patients with mental health problems and substance abuse problems. Patients with psychosis have hallucinations or delusions, and mood disorders include depression and anxiety.

The facility is designed with patient safety in mind. Doorknobs, faucets and shower heads are designed to make it difficult to tie a cord to them. Bathroom doors are made of foam and attached to the wall with Velcro, so that caregivers can quickly remove them to reach anxious patients.

This is not a lock-up facility. Most patients accept it voluntarily. Hospitalization is required for 15% of patients at risk of self-harm, Brunner said.

In a cost-effective move, Cleveland Heights Medical Center’s emergency department is being renovated to accommodate a psychiatric emergency department. Shared emergency rooms connect the medical center and the behavioral health hospital.

The new hospital will welcome patients from other MetroHealth locations, area hospitals and community behavioral health organizations from Northeast Ohio. Family and friends can also bring their loved ones to Cleveland Heights Hospital’s Psychiatric Emergency Department for evaluation.

“I’m absolutely thrilled,” said Brunner of Metro Health. “It will be amazing for our community.”