Hospital: ICU fills gap for mentally ill patients

Sept. 10--BLOOMINGTON -- Seriously mentally ill patients have stayed in a local hospital's intensive care unit for more than two months, in some cases, while waiting for beds in state mental facilities, according to a report presented Friday to the McLean County Behavioral Health Coordinating Council.

"We've had some who have lived with us two to three months in the ICU. Staff treats them like family," providing clothes and other necessities people lack while staying in the area designed for patients with life-threatening conditions, said Colleen Kannaday, president of Advocate BroMenn Medical Center, Normal.

Kannaday, a member of the council of health care providers and community leaders, said the emergency room is equipped with three special rooms for mental health patients, and it's not uncommon for people to remain in those rooms for days until a state bed is located for them.

When a patient needs to be hospitalized, doesn't qualify for admission to Advocate's 12-bed mental health unit and has to wait for a state bed, the patient is placed in the ICU, where staff and security levels are higher than ER, said Kannaday.

The hospital does not receive reimbursement for the ICU stays, she said.

Last year, Advocate's emergency department had 1,929 visits involving mental health issues.

At OSF St. Joseph Medical Center, 900 emergency room visits related to mental health issues were logged between October 2014 and September 2015, Meridith Nelson, director of strategic planning for OSF, told the council on Friday.

A room in the OSF emergency department is being modified to accommodate mental health patients, she said.

In another matter, David Sharar, Chestnut Health Systems chief clinical officer, told the council a crisis stabilization unit operated by Chestnut in Bloomington also is seeing heavy use by people who need help with alcohol and/or drug detox.

In August, the short-term residential care unit had 570 admissions for detox services and 201 for mental health care.

Most patients have overlapping needs, said Sharar.

"A lot of patients with a mental health diagnosis come in under the influence ... it's all co-occurring," said Sharar, adding that patients move from detox to mental health services after they are clean and sober. The average stay at the unit is eight days for mental health patients and almost five days for detox services.

The need for detox services exceeds bed space, said Sharar. In August, all 14 beds in the unit were full and 51 people were turned away. Alcohol and opiate addiction are the top causes of admission, he said.

County Administrator Bill Wasson told the group the county has cleared the initial hurdles on its application for a $215,000 federal grant that would help the county expand the critical incident team mental health training beyond first responders in McLean County to include dispatchers, medical personnel, PATH, juvenile detention and court services workers and prosecutors.

McLean County was selected in June to participate in a White House initiative on data-driven research that will link the criminal justice system with local health care providers to track frequent users of local resources and identify methods to reduce their return to emergency rooms and jail.

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