A new 264-bed state psychiatric facility in Houston opened this week and will begin accepting patients in March. The John S. Dunn Center for Behavioral Sciences is an addition to the existing UTHealth Harris County Psychiatric Center, and will serve the city of Houston, as well as the 29 surrounding counties.
In 2017, the Texas Legislature approved state funding for the $127 million project, and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, in partnership with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, directed its construction. . The goal was to help ease the strain on the state’s existing psychiatric facilities.
Dr Lokesh Shahani, a psychiatrist and medical director of the new hospital, spoke to the Texas Standard about how the hospital will care for patients and whether a new hospital is enough to relieve an overburdened state psychiatric system. Listen to Dr. Shahani’s interview in the audio player above or read the transcript below.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Texas Standard: Can you describe what the new center is like and the types of treatments it will offer?
Dr Lokesh Shahani: We would be opening a new hospital building right next to our current existing building. Our current existing building is called the UTHealth Harris County Psychiatric Center. It’s a 274-bed hospital, and right next to it is this new 264-bed hospital. So, combined, we’re going to have 538 inpatient psychiatric beds for the community. It’s going to be the largest academic psychiatric hospital in the nation. We will be the greatest in history and we will definitely be the best in the nation, that is the motto that we go forward with.
Access to inpatient psychiatric beds is a challenge at both the national and state levels, so obviously we will promote access to inpatient psychiatric treatment. But more than that, what we really believe is that we can develop new and innovative ways to treat patients with significant mental illness. What we want to do is develop an individualized and personalized level of care for our patients.
A public psychiatric hospital has not been built in Texas in more than two decades. Why is one being built now? What changed?
The first big reason is that access to some of them has been a bit difficult, especially due to the growing mental health pandemic in our community. We call it the silent pandemic, the mental health pandemic that has been growing in the last two years, where getting into inpatient psychiatric beds is becoming difficult because of the number of people who need it. The other big reason is that there are times when you need enhanced outpatient treatment. You know, it’s almost like there’s not one shoe for everyone; people with different psychiatric illnesses need different types of treatment.
The other thing that this hospital will add to our community is that it will provide continuous care. If you have a serious heart condition or stroke, you tend to be admitted to an ICU floor. From there, once you’re feeling a little better, you’ll move down to a more regular medical bed. From there, he transitions to a specialized rehab center and then goes home. That is something that psychiatry lacks. For patients who have an acute psychiatric illness, they go to an inpatient psychiatric hospital, they stay around seven to 10 days, but after that, the resources available in the community are very scarce.
What we plan to do is if someone has a serious mental illness, they are admitted for seven to 10 days of acute psychiatric care in our acute unit. We bring them down to what we call a “sub-acute level of care,” where much of their treatment is focused on rehabilitation, integrating them back into the community; that is something that will be completely new. And at this level, it’s probably not available anywhere in the country, and that’s something that we’re really excited about.
You mentioned the “silent pandemic,” and we’ve heard and read a lot about struggling teens, in particular. What populations do you anticipate this new hospital will serve?
This hospital will serve everyone in our community. We are planning to open a child and adolescent psychiatry unit within our hospital.
There have been many reports and many conversations surrounding overstretched public psychiatric resources in Texas. Will a hospital be enough? Can a hospital carry that burden?
One hospital is not enough to meet the burden of our entire state. And I really appreciate what the Texas Health and Human Services Commission [HHSC] is doing for us. They are investing in many more resources and building other hospitals across our state. I know about Austin State Hospital, San Antonio State Hospital, increasing their services. I also know of ongoing discussions with UT Southwestern in Dallas to increase access to inpatient levels of psychiatry. Investing in major academic medical centers and integrating them with state hospitals is something HHSC is trying to do here.
