“Behavioral health patients tend to stay longer compared to standard emergency department patients. When you look at behavioral health patients who come to the ER, pediatric patients tend to stay a lot longer than adult patients,” Mass General’s Seger said. “We are seeing a lot more pediatric patients.”
Only about 1 in 5 children with a psychiatric illness visits a mental health professional in the US, said Dr. Susan Swick, executive developer at Montage Health’s Ohana House, a center for children’s behavioral health and adolescents at the Monterey Peninsula Community Hospital. in California. Access to behavioral health for children has likely been reduced as families have locked themselves in the house together, with increased drug and alcohol use, disruption of routines, increased financial strains, and death of loved ones, he said.
“We have seen an accelerated pattern of increased rate of anxiety, mood disorders, and substance use. As a result, services are more difficult to access,” Swick said. “People can’t access care, so they end up in crisis and go to the emergency room, where they stay for days, if not weeks, waiting for a bed.”
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Ohana is a 55,000-square-foot, 16-bed residential and outpatient center for children and adolescents set to open next year. The family-centered clinical program and building were funded by a $106 million grant. Ohana sends child therapists to local middle schools to try to establish early intervention strategies. Offers a full range of mental health services, including screening, treatment and prevention programs, such as occupational therapy and art and music classes.
About 1 in 6 high school students across California considered suicide in 2020; 1 in 3 suffered from depression, according to the California Healthy Kids Survey. Nationwide, mental health emergency department visits increased 24% from April to October 2020 for children ages 5 to 11, data from the Milbank Memorial Fund shows. Such visits increased 31% for youth ages 12 to 17 during that time.
