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Psychiatric unit ready to reopen at hospital
Cannon Memorial to serve 16-county area of Northwest
Journal Graphic by Nicholas Weir
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Published: September 28, 2008
LINVILLE - When Cannon Memorial Hospital closed its inpatient psychiatric unit in 2005 because of financial problems, the Northwest North Carolina mountain counties were left without any inpatient behavioral-health treatment centers.
But it wasn't long before hospital administrators were trying to work out a financial model that made sense so that the hospital could again offer inpatient psychiatric care.
Inpatient psychiatric care is set to reopen soon here as part of a pilot program that will provide more state support to community mental-health providers in an effort to reduce admissions to state psychiatric hospitals.
The Kate B. Reynolds Inpatient Behavioral Health Unit is scheduled to open Wednesday at Cannon Memorial, which is part of the Appalachian Regional Healthcare System.
"Our goal is to meet the needs of patients in this region so they don't have to go 40 miles away for care," said Stephanie Greer, the director of the behavioral health for Appalachian Regional Healthcare System. The nearest other inpatient psychiatric units at community hospitals are in Hickory, Asheville and Johnson City, Tenn.
The new inpatient psychiatric unit at Cannon Memorial will serve patients primarily from a 16-county area that includes Ashe, Alleghany, Avery, Watauga and Wilkes counties. It will also handle referrals from other counties as space is available.
The 10-bed unit will offer acute stabilization for patients ages 18-65 who have been diagnosed with such conditions as anxiety, depression and thought disorders. Patients will be treated by a team of psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, social workers, therapists and certified nursing assistants.
Cannon Memorial had offered inpatient psychiatric care since 1979, before closing its geriatric psychiatric unit in 2005.
Chuck Mantooth, the chief executive officer of Cannon Memorial, said that the unit closed because the reimbursement system in place then made it difficult for the unit to break even.
When considering reopening a psychiatric unit, the hospital looked for a different source of reimbursements and also re-examined its focus, shifting from a geriatric center to one that served adults up to age 65.
"The last piece of the puzzle was the financial piece," Mantooth said. "How could we provide the service and make sure it's sustainable."
The hospital will participate in a pilot program through July 2009, involving Broughton Hospital, the state-run psychiatric hospital in Morganton. Broughton doesn't have the room for all the patients who need admission.
Twenty-seven percent of the patients cared for at Cannon Memorial's inpatient psychiatric unit will be indigent patients who might have otherwise been treated at Broughton. The state has provided money to Smoky Mountain Mental Health, which in turn will contract with Cannon Memorial for their care. The other patients at Cannon's unit will have private health insurance or Medicare or Medicaid.
The average length of stay is expected to be seven days. About half the patients are expected to come from a doctor or health service that's already providing care and will go back to that outpatient care after hospitalization. Other patients will be set up with outpatient care in the counties in which they live.
After Cannon's inpatient psychiatric unit closed in 2005, the space was used for the hospital's behavioral health-care outpatient program. The new inpatient unit will now reclaim the space where the previous inpatient psychiatric unit was housed. The outpatient program has been moved into new offices in the Sloop Medical Plaza, on the hospital campus.
The hospital has done about $125,000 in renovations for security and safety improvements to the inpatient center. The most expensive change was to install plumbing without exposed pipes anywhere, including shower fixtures. The goal is to eliminate places where a despondent patient could hang himself.
The money for renovations came from Smoky Mountain Mental Health, and the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Rural Health.
■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
Hospital Tours
Tours of the new Kate B. Reynolds Inpatient Behavioral Health Unit at Cannon Memorial Hospital will be part of an open house at 4 p.m. Monday. The open house will also feature the new offices for the outpatient program. Visitors should enter the Sloop Medical Office Plaza and go to Suite 235 to meet the staff and tour the units. Travelers from Boone would turn right from N.C. 105 onto U.S. 221. The hospital is at 234 Hospital Drive. For more information, go to www.apprhs.org/behavioral.
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