Business

Pardee wins grant for mental health treatment

By Bill Moss, Published: June 26, 2012

Pardee Hospital has received a $145,000 grant to help with the treatment of behavioral health and substance abuse patients who come to Pardee's emergency department, the hospital said in a news release.The grant was made to the Pardee Foundation by the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust in Winston-Salem.
The project will improve the lives of residents of Henderson, Polk and Transylvania counties by assisting with the implementation of a transitional care model of specialized, group and recreational therapies for behavioral health patients awaiting transfer to other facilities in North Carolina, Pardee said. With a growing mental health patient base, the program expands Pardee's existing continuum of care for the more than 200 mental health patients per month. In addition to the $145,228 grant from the trust, other funds will be provided by Pardee Hospital and Pardee Hospital Foundation.
"The ED Psych Transitional unit is a patient centered area that will facilitate beginning therapies by specialized social workers and recreational therapist to the mental health patient during the time they are awaiting placement," said Gayle Sams, director of emergency services at Pardee. "We anticipate patients will actually have a lower length of stay, with appropriate patients being discharged with a plan to include an outpatient appointment. This overall plan will assist Pardee, the primary provider of mental health services in Henderson, Polk and Transylvania counties by saving admissions to inappropriate or higher cost services and opening some beds for other emergency patients in the main ED,"
Pardee's emergency department is the second largest in the WNC region, serving over 30,000 patients per year and an additional 22,000 in our urgent care facility. The base of patients with substance abuse and mental health issues has steadily been growing over the past three years and is averaging over 150 per month. This new service will allow for a higher percentage of behavioral health patients to be served by Pardee's therapy resources in a local setting and transferred to state facilities for only the most extreme/violent cases.