Astria Toppenish Hospital is successfully increasing access to behavioral health care services for its community. Its efforts have included launching a new inpatient psychiatric unit for patients with co-occurring disorders, partnering with the Yakima Nation to provide outpatient psychiatric medication management services to tribal members, and opening a voluntary inpatient Medical Withdrawal Management unit.
On Jan. 1, 2019, Astria Toppenish launched its Behavioral Health Center of Excellence. As part of the program, its new inpatient psychiatric unit was concurrently certified as an evaluation & treatment facility and approved to accept 90-180 day committed patients. In February, the 90+ day civil commitment unit began accepting patients and is now full. The next step for the unit is to begin accepting patients with co-occurring psychiatric and substance use disorders requiring stays of up to 21 days.
Previously, patients in psychiatric crisis generally received evaluation and treatment in the hospital emergency room and were then referred to a non-hospital based residential or outpatient program. Astria Toppenish Hospital’s new inpatient unit allows for the evaluation and follow-up treatment to continue in an inpatient hospital setting, where medical and mental health professionals, working together, can help diagnosis and treat the patient.
“Astria Toppenish Hospital is excited to bring this new Behavioral Health Center of Excellence to the Yakima Valley,” says Eric Jensen, CEO, Astria Toppenish Hospital. “Our community and communities throughout the valley have identified a great need for better access to additional behavioral health programs here in Yakima County. This new inpatient unit is Astria Health’s response. It has been developed and designed using evidenced-based best practices. The program’s team of skilled physicians, a psychiatrist, clinical nurse practitioners, nurses and mental health professionals providing these services in a hospital setting helps us to more effectively care for those who have both mental and substance abuse disorders.”
Astria Toppenish has also partnered with the Yakama Nation to provide outpatient psychiatric medication management services to tribal members in their behavioral health clinic up to two days a week and will soon be providing those services to L&I patients in its recently opened occupational medicine clinic on the Astria Toppenish Hospital campus.
As an additional part of Astria Health’s plan to bring such much-needed behavioral health services to the Yakima Valley, Astria Toppenish also opened a voluntary inpatient Medical Withdrawal Management unit in late 2018. The Medical Withdrawal Management program accepts those patients experiencing the most severe withdrawal symptoms.
Additional information about Astria Toppenish Hospital’s behavioral health programs are available online.
