Just two years ago, officials in Clark County declared a healthcare crisis. Mental health patients were occupying at least one-third of the 330 beds in hospital emergency rooms (ERs). On average, as many as 30 patients a day would wait in the ER for up to 48 hours to be transferred to Southern Nevada Mental Health Services, an inpatient psychiatric facility. To make matters worse, overcrowded ERs were at high risk for delaying care needed by critically ill patients.
“The crisis of the lack of beds in this area for psychiatric patients who are underinsured or uninsured has driven the community to recognize that the ability of the local ERs to provide general healthcare has been severely compromised,” said Dr. David Rosin, the state’s medical director, who oversees psychiatric care for Nevada’s Division of Mental Health and Developmental Services (MHDS). “If you have a heart attack or are in an auto accident, you may not get into a bed because we have mentally ill patients there [in the ER] awaiting services.”
State officials are hopeful that the opening of a new 190-bed psychiatric hospital in July will alleviate much of its growing pains. Located on the corner of Jones and Oakey in western Las Vegas, the $32 million facility – called the Rawson-Neal Hospital – is patterned after positive elements of other recently built hospitals in Texas, according to Rosin.
He explained that the state’s first psychiatric hospital to employ these concepts was the Dini-Townsend Hospital built in Reno in 2001. Some if its features include an open courtyard and barrier-free nursing stations so nurses can monitor and interact with patients. Rosin, Dr. Carlos Brandenburg, the administrator of MHDS, and several representatives from HMC Architects in Reno, which designed the 106,000-square-foot hospital, studied what worked and what didn’t, then applied what they believed to be the best therapeutic environment to the new Las Vegas facility.
Instead of resembling a traditional hospital environment, the new facility features many residential qualities, such as plenty of natural light and open spaces to encourage social interaction. Close attention was also paid to planning the facility’s colors, added Jerry Eich, managing principal at HMC Architects. “A lot of research has been done in both acute care hospitals and mental health hospitals,” Eich said. “If you use primary colors like bright red or blue, everybody reacts to them in a different way. But earth tones like the color of water, the sky or grass, actually have a calming effect on people and can shorten their length of stay. That has been proven time and time again.”
Since the facility surrounds a courtyard where patients can play baseball or volleyball, no walls or fences were needed. Rosin said it is also equipped with an electronic medical records system that operates in real time. Scan pens or security devices carried by staff quickly inform them of problems anywhere on campus. Automatic pharmacy dispensing equipment is also being considered to eliminate pharmacy or medication errors.
Hospital staff can use a wide range of treatment options, such as art, music or occupational therapy. Rosin explained that the hospital has adopted the recovery model of care, which returns people – even those with chronic mental health problems – back into mainstream society as fast as possible.
“Whether or not this will resolve the crisis is not clear,” said Rosin. “We see this hospital as a hub, providing services to our community system.”