Local hospitals, agencies team up on effort
DAYTON - People whose mental or addiction disorders flare up wouldgo to a new specialized treatment center instead of hospitalemergency rooms if a collaborative project proceeds as planned.
Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare will donate space for a proposedbehavioral health emergency room, 16-bed hospital for short stays and23-hour observation area at the state mental hospital on WayneAvenue.
'I think it's a great idea,' said Michael F. Hogan, executivedirector of the Ohio Department of Mental Health. 'They do a terrificjob in Montgomery County, but they just don't have the ability toprovide overnight care that is really essential in mental healthcrisis care.'
The joint project of local hospitals and the public behavioralhealth system arose from a report by the Greater Dayton Area HospitalAssociation that found a 58 percent increase in psychiatric diagnosesat the six general hospital emergency rooms in Montgomery, Greene andMiami counties from 1999 to 2001.
'When these people go to emergency rooms, it delays theirtreatment and it delays the treatment of people who have emergencymedical needs,' Twin Valley CEO Jim Ignelzi said.
The additional cost of providing the new services would be atleast partly offset by treating patients in more efficient settingsthan emergency rooms, according to the GDAHA report.
Other funding is expected to come from the hospitals and from'economies of scale' brought by Samaritan CrisisCare's relocationfrom downtown Dayton to Twin Valley, GDAHA president Joseph Krellasaid. CrisisCare is the gateway to community behavioral healthservices of the county's Alcohol, Drug Addiction & Mental HealthServices Board. Both are collaborating with Twin Valley, thehospitals and Wright State University's psychiatry department to putthe recommendation into practice.
'The good news is, the process is moving,' Krella said.
Twin Valley would provide rent-free space in the building formerlyused for mentally ill prisoners, Ignelzi said. It also would removethe razor-wire fencing and other intimidating security apparatus fromthe old maximum-security operation, which has moved to Twin Valley'sColumbus site.
At the same time GDAHA was determining the need to expand thetreatment for acute behavioral disorders, the ADAMHS board's ownstudy reached a similar conclusion. The area doesn't have enoughhospital beds for 'the sheer magnitude of numbers showing up inemergency rooms,' executive director Joseph Szoke said.
Even the additional emergency, observation and hospitalizationservices won't be enough if the patients they help can't receivefollow-up care quickly, said Dr. Jerald Kay, Wright State'spsychiatry chairman. Money is wasted and people's recoveries areinhibited, he said, when they wait weeks for outpatient treatment andwind up back in the emergency room.
'We know the longer they go without follow-up, the more likelythey are to relapse,' Kay said.
The report said a 'crucial linchpin' in the plan was cooperationfrom the ADAMHS board in ensuring 'priority referral sites at whichthe center's clients could be seen within 72 hours after discharge.'
But the board can't make that guarantee, Szoke said. Besidesbudgetary constraints, he must follow state mandates that stipulatecertain priority populations. 'I can't move you to the front of theline over a pregnant woman or an indigent patient,' he said.
With the state's inflation-adjusted mental health budget down 22percent since 1997, the project's participants know they must lookbeyond public funding sources. Preliminary estimates have thehospitals contributing 'hundreds of thousands of dollars,' Krellasaid. 'It's a community issue, and we'll see who else can step up tothe plate.'
'The jury's still out on the cost-effectiveness, but the conceptis a good idea,' said Thomas Breitenbach, president and CEO ofPremier Health Partners, which includes Good Samaritan and MiamiValley hospitals. 'I think we can do a better job of taking care ofthe urgent needs of psychiatric patients by focusing morespecifically on their needs.'
MORE ONLINE
More health news: ActiveDayton.com/health
