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Round up: A look
at inpatient psychiatry
in New England
MASSACHUSETTS
(May
2005 Issue)
McLean Hospital in Belmont has gotten a bit smaller. In March 2005,
the hospital finalized the sale of 26.2 acres of its property to
a residential developer for the construction of a housing development.
The move is part of the McLean Land Development Plan, which will
see the sale of 51 of the hospital's 238 acres sold to developers.
The plan will leave the core campus intact.
The Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, a private psychiatric hospital
and residential treatment center, seems to be doing nicely with
its Campaign for the Next Generation, a fundraising initiative that
has garnered $6.8 million in donations so far. The most recent gift,
in Feb. 2005, was a $1 million commitment from a former patient's
family as a gesture of appreciation for the center's work. The donation
will go toward the construction of a new Patient Community Center,
which is expected to begin construction in the summer.
Elizabeth Millard
Before Jan. 17, 2005, Pembroke Hospital in Massachusetts cared
for geriatric patients throughout its building, but on Jan. 17,
the hospital opened a unit dedicated solely to their care.
Pembroke is one cog in the Arbor Health System wheel, Massachusetts'
largest private mental health system comprising Pembroke, Arbour,
Arbour-Fuller, Westwood Lodge and Arbour-HRI hospitals and 11 counseling
centers. But Pembroke was the only hospital in its part of Massachusetts
to open such a unit. Its 10-bed Inpatient Geropsychiatry Program
now offers treatment to older adults who need to be hospitalized
for psychiatric or behavioral difficulties.
"Pembroke Hospital had been taking geriatric patients … but they've
now created a distinct unit," says Judith Merel, director of marketing
and strategic planning for Arbour Health. "It's the only geropsych
program in that area of the states [so] there was a lot of demand
for the services," she says.
The Inpatient Geropsychiatry Program caters to psychiatric patients
who have more medically oriented needs than others, says Merel.
Patients who can benefit are those who suffer from serious mental
illness, dementia or who need more constant evaluation and stabilization.
Specific services provided include but aren't limited to assistance
with feeding and using the bathroom, and giving intermittent oxygen.
But a growing population of patients is in need of the kinds of
services provided by what Merel calls "partial hospitalization programs,"
too: those that offer healthcare for older adults who need supervision
and treatment, but not on a 24-hour basis.
"[In the last year, Arbor] has opened a couple of partial programs
[for] patients who are acute and need a structured environment,
requiring basically four to six hours of programming a day" but
who don't require a lockdown facility, says Merel. These patients,
she says, come from VNAs, assisted living facilities - people who
attend the program for a set number of daily hours and then go home
because their needs aren't as medically crucial as those in the
geropsychiatry category.
Pembroke's Inpatient Geropsychiatry Program's goals include providing
a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation of "the older adult," restoring
and maintaining the individual's highest level of functioning, and
supporting his or her continued functioning in their community or
long-term care residence after being hospitalized.
Jennifer Chase Esposito
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