Badly needed mental health unit to open

Within the next seven months, Southwest Florida will have a hospital unit geared toward treating geriatrics with behavorial health issues.

Lee Memorial Health System has signed a contract with Birmingham-based Reliant Healthcare to open a 15-bed facility on the third floor of Lee Memorial Hospital.

"It really is a privilege for us to come into Lee County and join your family and community," Reliant president Jim Harper told the hospital's board of directors during a meeting last week. "You have been hurt badly by the absence of services for many years. We hope this is a first step toward larger and broader services in Lee County. This is an important first step to see how it fits into a larger plan."

Hospital chief executive officer Jim Nathan said that behavioral health tied with primary care as the most important issues the community wants addressed.

The hospital system partnered with Lee Mental Health, which runs the Ruth Cooper Center, and Reliant to come up with a plan for the unit.

"I can't tell you how excited, no thrilled, we are that Reliant is here and we are developing a facility to provide the type of care we need for people with mental health problems in Lee County," said County Commissioner Bob Janes. "We are making a start. The largest psychiatric facility we have had here until now was the county jail."

Reliant specializes in the development, operation and staffing of behavioral health systems on the campuses of medical surgical hospitals and medical centers in growing urban and suburban markets. This niche in the healthcare environment is called the "hospital within a hospital" or "psychiatric pavilion."

Officials said they plan to submit architectural plans to the Agency for Health Care Administration for approval, which should take about 90 days. From there, officials plan to bid out the project, which is expected to take an additional 60 days. They expect the small unit to be open by June. Once open, they plan to document how often it is used so that they can submit paperwork to state officials showing there is a need in the area for a larger facility.

The Certificate of Need program is a regulatory process that requires certain health care providers to obtain state approval before offering certain new or expanded services.

"Geriatric utilization is necessary for Tallahassee to approve a larger facility," Harper said.

He said data can be sent to Tallahassee showing utilization during either February or August 2009.

If a certificate of need is approved, officials are hoping a larger facility can be open in late 2010 or early 2011.

"Is it going to be easy? No, not at all," Janes said. "But, it can be done and it will be done. We're going to make this the number one facility in the state if not the nation."