Preparation for MetroHealth Behavioral Health Hospital Opening Continues
On October 8, 2022, the MetroHealth Cleveland Heights Behavioral Health Hospital will open its doors to adults and seniors who need inpatient care for behavioral health. The adolescent unit will open in June 2023.
The 112-bed hospital on the campus of the MetroHealth Cleveland Heights Medical Center at 10 Severance Circle, is designed for short-terms stays for people with mood disorders, addiction and other behavioral health needs.
The added behavioral health presence will be apparent even before the new hospital opening. MetroHealth’s psychiatry residency program will be based there, beginning in early July.
Later in July, MetroHealth’s partial hospitalization program – the highest level of outpatient behavioral health care – also will begin providing intensive services to adult patients five days a week.
Bev Lozar joined MetroHealth in April 2021 as executive director of behavioral hospital operations. She has been overseeing hospital construction and working to develop the operational plans for the hospital.
Construction on a walkway connecting the new building to the health center began in May and will be completed in August.
The Emergency Department is being renovated. Space that was unused or underused is being turned into assessment rooms for behavioral health patients to facilitate the intake process.
A job fair held at Cleveland Heights on May 20 attracted more than 50 people interested in job openings for a dozen different opportunities. Social worker, patient care nurse assistant, registered nurse, and mental health counselor positions are among those being filled.
So far, roughly 75% of the available nursing positions and all behavioral health specialist positions have been filled.
“There is a great deal of interest from nurses in the community in coming to a new facility,” Lozar said. “We’ve attracted a lot of talented and qualified people, which is great because we can’t do this without them.”
They will be among the 155 new employees at the Cleveland Heights facility, which will eventually rise to 225 employees and provide an additional $340,000 in income tax revenue to Cleveland Heights.
The hospital is designed with five separate units – GeroPsych (for older adults); Dual Diagnosis; Mood Disorder; Thought Disorder and Adolescents – for patients with different diagnoses. Inpatient and outpatient group therapy and other programs are being designed to address the specific needs of those different patient populations.
Kythryn Carr Harris, who joined MetroHealth in September 2021 as Executive Director for Community Behavioral Health, manages MetroHealth's outpatient behavioral health services.
As Director of Clinical Services, Robert Hammond, PsyD, oversees a team of clinicians developing programming and curriculum for inpatients.
Individuals who currently are brought to MetroHealth’s emergency departments at the Main Campus or the Brecksville or Parma locations for assessment will be transferred to Cleveland Heights if they require inpatient care.
People can bring an individual directly to the Cleveland Heights ED. Once there, that person will undergo an assessment to make sure they’re medically stable. Following an evaluation, the individual will be admitted as an inpatient or referred to intensive outpatient behavioral health services at Cleveland Heights.
“With our expansion of beds, we anticipate that we will get referrals from hospitals outside of the MetroHealth system,” Lozar said. “We are establishing a process to assess those patients as well.”
Founded in 1837, MetroHealth is leading the way to a healthier you and a healthier community through service, teaching, discovery, and teamwork. Cuyahoga County’s public, safety-net hospital system, MetroHealth meets people where they are, providing care through five hospitals, four emergency departments and more than 20 health centers. Each day, our nearly 9,000 employees focus on providing our community with equitable healthcare — through patient-focused research, access to care, and support services — that seeks to eradicate health disparities rooted in systematic barriers. For more information, visit metrohealth.org.
