UMass Memorial Health – Harrington opened new adult psychiatric unit
Front (l to r) - Doug Brown, CAO and President, Community Hospitals UMass Memorial Health; Brooke Doyle, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health,; Eldi Nissenbaum Director of Inpatient Psychiatric Unit; Dr. Richard Listerud, Chief of Psychiatry. Back - Joe McKenna, Massachusetts State Representative; Ed Moore, President of UMass Memorial Health - Harrington; Randy Becker, Harrington Board Chair and member of the Strategy Committee; Dr. Daryl Blaney, Medical Director of Inpatient Psychiatry; Greg Mirhej, Vice President of Behavioral Health Services.
WEBSTER – The UMass Memorial Health – Harrington Behavioral Health Department is expanding its adult inpatient services with the opening of a new Adult Psychiatric Unit (APU) at its Webster campus located at 340 Thompson Road.
On Thursday, October 28, UMass Memorial Health – Harrington held an official Ribbon Cutting Ceremony in honor of the expansion and relocation of the new unit. Those in attendance included Brooke Doyle, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (DMH); Doug Brown, CAO & President of Community Hospitals for UMass Memorial Health; and Ed Moore, President of UMass Memorial Health – Harrington, along with local legislators and several members of Harrington’s Board of Directors.
The new APU will replace an existing unit that is currently located in Harrington Hospital’s Southbridge Campus. The new unit in Webster will consist of 24 newly renovated inpatients beds and will help to address the significant shortage of behavioral health services in the Commonwealth.
In addition to the Inpatient Adult Psychiatric Unit, UMass Memorial Health – Harrington’s Webster Campus includes a 16-bed Co-Occurring Disorder inpatient unit, as well as a full continuum of outpatient behavioral health services, including Partial Hospital and Intensive Outpatient programs and Addiction Immediate Care, as well as group therapy and counseling.
“Our new Adult Inpatient Unit was made possible through a $1.2 million grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, along with the resources and support provided to us by our new partners within the UMass Memorial Health leadership,” said Ed Moore, President of UMass Memorial Health – Harrington.
“Through our ongoing partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, we’ve been able to become one of the very few healthcare organizations to offer a continuous care model of mental health and addiction treatment,” Moore said. “This model provides care for individuals all the way from crisis intervention through treatment and ongoing recovery and support. This expansion represents the latest step forward in our commitment to provide the best care possible to our patients.”
“This move is something that we’ve wanted to do for a long time,” said Greg Mirhej, Vice President of Behavioral Health Services at UMass Memorial Health – Harrington. “Not only does this new unit offer an improved environment of recovery for our patients requiring inpatient psychiatric care, it also centralizes our behavioral health services to one location. Additionally, it will strengthen the ability for patients to access continuous care in one convenient location throughout their entire treatment journey and road to recovery.”
“The pandemic has exacerbated the behavioral health crisis we were already in before March of 2020,” said Eric Dickson, MD, president and CEO of UMass Memorial Health. “The communities we serve in Central Massachusetts deserve to have the best care when it comes to behavioral health. The opening of the Webster Behavioral Health Unit at UMass Memorial Health-Harrington is an important resource to provide that kind of world-class care.”
