SPRINGDALE -- Northwest Health is adding patient beds to its behavioral health unit for the second year in a row because of a need for more mental health care, officials said.
The hospital will spend an estimated $4.35 million renovating the fifth floor of its medical center along South Thompson Street to add 30 beds, putting the unit at 79 beds, hospital leaders said. The project is in the design phase and there's no timeline for when the beds will be ready.
Vantage Point Behavioral Health Hospital and Springwoods Behavioral Health, both in Fayetteville, also offer inpatient psychiatric services. The three facilities have 243 beds for people getting treatment for depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and more.
"Will I believe that Northwest Arkansas ever has enough mental health beds? Absolutely not," said Jerri Skaggs, administrator for the Northwest Arkansas chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Skaggs leads a monthly support group for people with mental illnesses and their families. The group focuses both on emotional support and mental health services, she said.
Anything the region can do to add psychiatric beds and other mental health services is a plus, Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder said.
Helder served on Gov. Asa Hutchinson's mental health and prison reform committee.
Helder said, from a law enforcement perspective, it's better for police to help people with mental illnesses get to a mental health facility rather than jail.
FACILITIES
Northwest Health's mental health unit opened with 15 beds in 2009. The hospital added 18 beds in March 2018.
"We stay full 98.7% of the time," said Susan Kristiniak, assistant chief nursing officer at the behavioral unit.
Patients come from as far away as West Memphis, said Dr. Brian Hyatt, medical director.
Northwest had 1,858 patients in its behavioral health unit in 2018 and is on track to see 2,364 patients this year, said Beth Bradfield Wright, spokeswoman.
"We're working very diligently to make sure that we have the unit open as soon as possible because the need is in our community," said Hans Driessnack, chief executive officer of the Springdale medical center.
Vantage Point sees about 90 patients each month, and its beds stay nearly full, said Regina Sneed, director of business development. The facility opened as Charter Behavioral Hospital in 1983 and was later called Vista Health. Acadia Healthcare purchased it in 2013 and named it Vantage Point, Sneed said.
Vantage Point has 114 beds for patients 5 and older, including 80 beds for acute care and 30 for residential care. Acute care is for people who need "rapid stabilization" in situations such as suicide attempts, suicidal or homicidal thoughts, and drug or alcohol detoxification, Sneed said.
"Most of ours are acute. Emergency rooms are our largest referral," Sneed said.
Vantage Point will treat patients for seven to 10 days while they are coming off a drug or alcohol but isn't a long-term rehabilitation facility designed to help addicts not use again, Sneed said.
Vantage Point only offers residential care for patients younger than 18 who generally stay three to six months. The facility offers outpatient services for people over 18.
Springwoods Behavioral Health has had 80 beds for patients 12 and older since 2009, including a unit exclusively for women. It also has an outpatient program.
"We would love to see a second location for outpatient," said Sharon Ledbetter, director of business development at Springwoods.
Ledbetter declined to say how many patients Springwoods treats, but said the inpatient unit stays pretty full.
"We have had to say, 'We don't have any beds,'" she said.
Springwoods sometimes refers patients to one of its three sister hospitals in Little Rock.
TREATMENT
Northwest Health's behavioral unit accepts patients ages 18-64 who will be spread out over the third, fourth and fifth floors once the beds are added.
Driessnack said having psychiatric patients on three floors will give the hospital flexibility to separate them.
Separation can be beneficial for group therapy, for example, Hyatt said. Some patients with depression and suicidal thoughts have families and strong social support. Others have a hard time finding food, making it to appointments or understanding they need to take their medications.
"A lot of times, psychiatric patients don't think there's anything wrong," Hyatt said. "There's definitely something wrong, but since they don't think there's anything wrong, it's often a tough sell to convince them that you need to take medications for a disease that you don't believe that you have."
Driessnack said mental health can be better managed by seeking help early before a problem reaches an acute situation.
"Our goal is not to keep patients in that (inpatient) unit. Our goal is to get them healthy and into an outpatient environment," he said.
Northwest Health recently hosted free mental health screenings to detect depression and anxiety. Six people participated during the two-hour window.
The stigma of being treated for mental health sometimes deters people from getting treatment, and people who get screened often have an illness and are seeking validation that they have real illness, Kristiniak said.
Hyatt added people who wouldn't hesitate to be treated for a physical health problem often react differently when they have a mental health problem.
"They show up in our clinic and they're absolutely embarrassed. It's just another organ. If you have an imbalance in your heart, it needs help. If you have an imbalance in your kidney, it needs to be fixed. And it's the same thing with the brain," he said.
Vantage Point, Northwest Health and Springwoods accept patients regardless of ability to pay. Vantage Point and Northwest Health accept Medicaid. Vantage Point accepts ARKids First, a government-funded insurance program for children. Springwoods accepts ARKids First but not Medicaid.
Neither Mercy Hospital nor Washington Regional Medical Center have inpatient behavioral health units, representatives said.
Arkansas Children's Northwest has two behavioral health rooms each in its emergency department and its inpatient unit, spokeswoman Christina Schell said.
"(Children's) only admits patients to its Inpatient Unit behavioral health rooms when there is a need for ongoing medical intervention. Once the patient is medically cleared, they are discharged with a referral for outpatient services or transferred to an acute inpatient psychiatric facility. (Children's) does not have an Inpatient Unit to address acute or long-term mental or behavioral health needs," Schell wrote.
Fast facts
Depressive disorder, or depression, is more than feeling sad or going through a rough patch. For most people, depressive disorder changes how they function day-to-day, and typically for more than two weeks. Almost 7% of the United States population had at least one major depressive episode in one year as of August 2017.
Bipolar disorder is a mental illness that causes dramatic shifts in a person’s mood, energy and ability to think clearly. People with bipolar experience high and low moods — known as mania and depression — which differ from the typical ups-and-downs most people experience. About 2.6% of people in the United States are diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Schizophrenia is a mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others. It is a complex, long-term medical illness, affecting about 1% of Americans. Symptoms may include hallucinations or delusions.
Source: National Alliance on Mental Illness
NW News on 05/26/2019