CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — A new facility in Cleveland Heights aims to help ease a critical need for mental health and addiction services.
This week, MetroHealth will begin opening its $42 million Behavioral Health Center. The facility, which was added to the hospital system’s Cleveland Heights medical center, will offer 112 beds for patients who need treatment for mental illness, substance use disorder and other conditions.
During a tour Monday, staff told News 5 design elements in the building are intended to promote healing and dignity.
“When you have people in brand new, nice new, shiny spaces, it sends a message that we value them as people and want to make sure they have the same environment that any other type of patient in our hospital would,” said Bev Lozar, the Executive Director for Behavioral Health Operations at MetroHealth.
A combination of double and single occupancy patient rooms, community spaces and visitor areas throughout the 79,000-square-foot building were all designed with safety in mind. MetroHealth leaders said they received feedback from staff when considering the new facility’s features.
Dr. Julia Bruner, the MetroHealth Senior Vice President for Behavioral Health and Correctional Medicine added, “You have to retrofit that in most hospitals. So here we were able to start from ground zero and build what we thought would be best for our community.”
The facility will provide treatment to adolescents, adults and seniors for conditions such as bipolar disorder, depression, mood disorders, addiction and combinations of mental illness and substance abuse.
When the expansion was still in its planning stage, a 2019 study found Cuyahoga County needed 220 more behavioral beds to satisfy the current need. Staff said the pandemic exacerbated mental health issues and the county is currently on pace to have a record number of fatal overdoses in 2022.
“112 beds would make up about half of that deficit. In the meantime, we’ve had beds close at St. Vincent, we’re having beds close at Richmond and we’re barely going to be keeping even when this new facility opens,” said Lozar.
MetroHealth’s new facility will begin accepting patients a month before St. Vincent Charity Hospital is scheduled to end its inpatient services.
Leadership at the downtown hospital explained inpatient behavioral health services had been limited by the pandemic. The medical center currently offers adult and geriatric behavioral health care, as well as acute stabilization.
On November 15th, it will discontinue its 91 beds intended in the inpatient psychiatric and detoxification units. A spokesperson said St. Vincent is currently working with area hospitals to secure transfer agreements to transition current patients before the closure.
“We expect that as we open beds, patients will arrive,” Dr. Bruner said.
The MetroHealth Behavioral Health Center will open in phases. 40 beds are currently available, with capacity scheduled to be scaled up through 2023. Eventually, the hospital system anticipates 5,000 patients will use the inpatient facility annually.
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