Worcester Business Journal

16 Worcester Business Journal | November 22, 2021 | wbjournal.com YOUR HEALTH. YOUR LIFE. OUR PROMISE. No matter what life holds for you, we hold on to the belief that you should have access to the best care that medicine has to offer. That's why through good times, through bad times, through lifetimes, we're here. For everyone. THE RELENTLESS PURSUIT OF HEALING ummhealth.org 855-UMASS-MD F O C U S H E A L T H C A R E Continued from previous page Sept. 13 Sept. 20 Sept. 27 Oct. 4 Number of patients waiting for a bed 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 102 91 74 106 Waiting for a bed For the week of Oct. 4, Massachusetts had 501 patients boarding in emergency departments, waiting for evaluation and placement into an inpatient behavioral health facility. Here's how many have been waiting in Central Massachusetts. Note: MHHA breaks the figures down by region. Central Massachusetts is considered Region 2, which includes Athol Hospital, Harrington Hospital, Heywood Hospital, Milford Regional Medical Center, Nashoba Valley Medical Center, Saint Vincent Hospital, UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital, and UMass Memorial Medical Center. Source: Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association "Staffing, in general, has been really really hard. If you talk to any of the hospitals, that's certainly their No. 1 problem," he said. Recruiting and retaining social workers, therapists, and other mental health professionals has been a challenge everywhere, including at UMass-Har- rington. A social worker himself, Mirhej understands the difficulties of the job. "Behavioral health, it's a challenging area to work in," he said. And at the same time, he said, psychiatric and substance use disor- ders don't exist in a vacuum. ere's oen other issues at play with patients, including employment, health, and nutrition problems. Failing to deal with those areas leads to readmissions and relapses, Mirhej said. What can help prevent re-exacerbation of mental health problems, as well as prevent inpatient stays in certain situations, is improving outreach efforts for discharged patients, as well as opportunities for comprehen- sive support. One such pilot program Harrington previously participated in, he said, stationed social workers in the emer- gency room to intervene in mental health-related situations, nearly halving the number of adult psychiatric patients waiting for care in the emergency room. But then, funding for the program ran out. Harrington is participating in another similar effort, a mobile respite clinic run by Worcester nonprofit Open Sky Community Service. It's so popular, he said, there is a waiting list. rough the program, which is backed by the Massachusetts Depart- ment of Mental Health, professionals from the nonprofit reach out to those having behavioral crises in the emergen- cy department, or in inpatient units, to provide support to help them return to their homes. is support can come in different forms, including helping them access housing, apply for emergency food stamps, and accessing their future outpatient appointments. Since March, 84% of the clients Open Sky served through this program did not return to the emergency department. "Part of our model is we were avail- able to rapidly respond to their needs," said Jillian Ricard, director of respite services at Open Sky. e program's funding is set to last another two years. Ed Moore, president and CEO of Harrington Hospital, is particularly proud of what the network has been able to provide the region in terms of psychiatric help, particularly when it comes to covering almost the entire continuum of care. Aside from its psy- chiatric unit, for example, the Webster campus opened last year addiction immediate care – essentially an urgent care center for those with substance use problems. Moore put the onus on other healthcare networks to commit to doing the same. "I like to think of it as a model for what community hospitals can do and should do," Moore said. Legislative action On Nov. 9, the Massachusetts Senate introduced a bill aimed in part at tackling the pervasiveness of emergen- cy room boarding. An omnibus bill dubbed the Mental Health ABC Act 2.0: Addressing Barriers to Care, it would set aside $400 million in American Res- cue Plan Act funds to bolster the state's behavioral health sector in a variety of ways. Some $122 million would be used to recruit and retain 2,000 behavioral

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