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Updated: October 18, 2024 @ 6:48 am
Karen Dorr, senior director of Valley Health’s Behavioral Health Services, is shown in a comfort room in the hospital’s new Valley Health Emergency, Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment, and Healing (EmPATH) unit during a tour on Thursday.
Jessica Johnson, manager of behavioral health integration at Valley Health, stands at the law enforcement station in the involuntary admittance area of the hospital’s new Valley Health Emergency, Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment, and Healing (EmPATH) unit.
Valley Health officials at a ribbon cutting Thursday morning for the new Valley Health Emergency, Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment, and Healing (EmPATH) unit. Shown from left are Jessica Johnson, manager of behavioral health integration; Mark Nantz, president and CEO of Valley Health; Karen Dorr, senior director of behavioral health services, and Jenny Reed, psychiatric liaison manager.
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Karen Dorr, senior director of Valley Health’s Behavioral Health Services, is shown in a comfort room in the hospital’s new Valley Health Emergency, Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment, and Healing (EmPATH) unit during a tour on Thursday.
Jessica Johnson, manager of behavioral health integration at Valley Health, stands at the law enforcement station in the involuntary admittance area of the hospital’s new Valley Health Emergency, Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment, and Healing (EmPATH) unit.
Valley Health officials at a ribbon cutting Thursday morning for the new Valley Health Emergency, Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment, and Healing (EmPATH) unit. Shown from left are Jessica Johnson, manager of behavioral health integration; Mark Nantz, president and CEO of Valley Health; Karen Dorr, senior director of behavioral health services, and Jenny Reed, psychiatric liaison manager.
WINCHESTER — Valley Health is opening a new facility to offer immediate mental health care to people in crisis.
The Valley Health Emergency, Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment and Healing (EmPATH) unit, located inside Winchester Medical Center on Amherst Street, will be the first of its kind in Virginia, a place where people who urgently need help from a professional mental health specialist can knock on the door, day or night, and ask to be seen.
While the EmPATH unit won’t open until Oct. 29, Valley Health held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the facility on Thursday morning. Among the approximately 50 people in attendance were Valley Health staff, area law enforcement officials and local and state government representatives.
Valley Health President and CEO Mark Nantz said the new EmPATH unit was created thanks in large part to support from Virginia’s General Assembly. Del. Bill Wiley (R-Frederick County) was honored at Thursday’s ceremony for helping to secure $2.5 million in state funding for the unit.
“We’re happy to be one of the pioneers for this in the state,” Wiley said. “I’m happy to hear you can knock on the door and get help immediately.”
“We have to stay attuned to the needs of our community,” Nantz said. “I think every one of us knows someone who has done something, whether it was to themselves or others, where we just said that’s not who that person was but, at that moment in time, it made sense to that person. That person at that moment in time could be any one of us, and the last thing they need is the chaos of an emergency room.”
Currently, all psychiatric patients, whether they come to Winchester Medical Center on their own, in an ambulance or in the custody of a police officer, are directed to the hospital’s Emergency Department.
Karen Dorr, Valley Health’s senior director of nursing for behavioral health services, offered a tour of the new EmPATH unit, a quiet space located near the main entrance to Winchester Medical Center’s North Tower.
There are no hard corners on the furnishings, and the counters are installed at an angle, visitors noticed. Dorr said that’s because everything in the EmPATH unit, including the uniquely shaped door handles, has an anti-ligature design, meaning there’s nowhere suicidal patients can affix a rope or cord to harm themselves.
“We want patients to be able to move freely in this space in a way that they can’t in spaces that are not anti-ligature,” Dorr said. “All of these things are designed to keep patients safe and allow them the maximum freedom [possible] in this space.”
Dorr also pointed out that the chairs and tables in the unit are quite heavy, making it difficult for them to be thrown by patients in emotional distress.
The brightly lit EmPATH unit is painted and decorated with a predominantly blue, green and yellow color scheme. Jenny Reed, psychiatric liaison manager for Valley Health, said the colors were specifically chosen because they have been proven to be calming.
There are two types of patients who will utilize the EmPATH unit: Those who voluntarily seek treatment and those who are brought in by law enforcement to determine if they need psychiatric help.
For those voluntarily seeking assistance, they’ll enter a small waiting area before receiving a preliminary assessment from a triage nurse. If the EmPATH unit can be of service, the patient will be seen by a mental health professional or, if one isn’t on site, be directed to another room for a telehealth consultation.
Whether in-person or via telehealth, Dorr said: “They’ll have access to psychiatry 24/7.”
People waiting to see a psychiatrist will be assigned to a large room outfitted with comfortable recliners. If a person needs help calming down while waiting to be seen, a private comfort room with an overstuffed beanbag chair that rocks back and forth can be utilized.
“I think we’re all signing up for our turn [in the beanbag rocker],” Dorr said.
Next to the comfort room is another private room with a bed for patients who want to lie down rather than use the recliners or beanbag rocker, Dorr said.
Patients will be seen by a doctor in another private room. Based on the doctor’s guidance, they can be sent home, admitted to the hospital or referred to another psychiatric facility.
On the other side of the EmPATH unit is a space for involuntary mental health patients. This is where police officers can bring a person to determine if they are experiencing a mental health emergency and need immediate treatment.
When a person is brought in involuntarily, a police officer needs to stay with that person until a doctor determines the best course of action. Area law enforcement agencies have long maintained this takes police off the streets for up to eight hours at a time. While the new EmPATH unit won’t change that arrangement, it is set up so that only one law enforcement officer can be stationed in the unit to watch all involuntary admissions, freeing other officers to return to duty.
“Our law enforcement heroes spend far too much time sitting in emergency rooms across the commonwealth,” said Nelson Smith, commissioner of the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services.
Another time-saving feature for law enforcement is a direct telecom from the EmPATH unit to the local magistrate’s office.
“We can speak directly to the magistrate about getting an emergency custody order [for involuntary patients in critical need of treatment] if they need to,” Dorr said.
If an involuntary patient receives treatment in the EmPATH and a doctor determines they are no longer a threat to themselves or others, they can be released from police custody or, if charged with a crime, transported to the Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center. Doctors can also determine if an involuntary patient needs to be admitted to the hospital or transferred to Western State Hospital, a state-run psychiatric facility in Staunton.
Data shared by Valley Health shows a real need for the new EmPATH unit. Last year, 2,478 adults received psychiatric assessments in Winchester Medical Center’s Emergency Department. Of those, 1,596 were admitted to the hospital, including 123 involuntary patients who had temporary detention orders filed by a magistrate.
“We have, clearly, a need for mental health care in our community and in our country,” said Winchester Medical Center President Tonya Smith. “I’m so proud to be part of an organization that believes and demonstrates with our actions that mental health is as important as cardiac health and lung health and all the other diseases that we treat every single day.”
“ “” — Del. Bill Wiley (R-Frederick County) {related_content_uuid}33054770-a373-40b7-8baa-de778f5a4dce{/related_content_uuid}
— Contact Brian Brehm at bbrehm@winchesterstar.com
“We’re happy to be one of the pioneers for this in the state. I’m happy to hear you can knock on the door and get help immediately.”
— Del. Bill Wiley (R-Frederick County)
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Delegate Wiley is an amazing and caring leader. Thank you so much, Brian Brehm for such a wonderful article.
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