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Project funded by MC Mental Health and Recovery Board
YOUNGSTOWN
Mercy Health St. Elizabeth Boardman and the St. Elizabeth Emergency & Diagnostic Center in Austintown are planning to convert a regular single emergency-examination room and restroom in each facility to make them safe for psychiatric/behavioral health patients.
The project, expected to be completed this summer, is funded up to $120,000 by the Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board.
“Mental Health and Recovery Board members feel strongly that we must provide a safe environment for our consumers seeking treatment at the Mercy Health Boardman and Austintown sites,” said Duane J. Piccirilli, executive director.
In 2014, the mental health board budgeted $300,000 for hospital inpatient uncompensated care.
But, Piccirilli said, because Medicaid Expansion is working and most of the consumers placed in the Mercy Health Behavioral Health Unit at St. Elizabeth Hospital Youngstown are covered through Medicare, the board used very little of that line-item money.
Instead, the board directed to fund projects such as refitting the emergency department examination rooms in the Boardman and Austintown to make them safer for psychiatric/behavioral health patients, hospital staff and other patients, Piccirilli said.
“We feel it is the best use of our money to help our consumers, and a great partnership with Mercy Health,” he said.
Mercy Health appreciates help in meeting a growing need, and it is important for the patients and the staff, said Jan Divelbiss, director of emergency services for Mercy Health’s St. Elizabeth Boardman Hospital and the Austintown Emergency and Diagnostic Center.
Divelbiss, accompanied by Lisa J. Brandyberry, market director for program excellence/ Behavioral Health Institute at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, and Wayne Tennant, Mercy Health Youngstown vice president of support services, visited the Austintown and Boardman emergency departments to begin the process of choosing ER examination rooms to adapt.
Generally, they said the room should be in a quieter area of the emergency room yet still in view of hospital personnel.
If the ER doesn’t have a special room for that type of patient, a staff person has to individually sit with them, said Brandyberry.
During a crisis, patients are not restrained unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything possible is removed from the room, including cords and hoses. The new rooms will be safer for patients and staff, she said.
Nationally, ligature is the leading cause of death of psychiatric/behavior health patients in the ER, Divelbiss said.
Changes planned for the ER exam room chosen include removing or concealing devices, accessories, electrical outlets and medical gasses; making toilets safe for psychiatric patients, and removing or concealing cords.
At the same time, Divelbiss said, the room still must serve as an examination room for regular ER patients.
While this project is being planned, work has begun to ready the seventh floor of Mercy Health’s St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital to expand its acute-care inpatient behavioral-health unit and establish a geropsychiatric unit.
The $5 million project at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital project will increase the number of acute-care inpatient beds from 16 to 24 and establish a 14-bed geropsychiatric inpatient unit. It is expected to be completed by January 2016.