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Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024

Behavioral Hospital

Lancaster will host the state’s first behavioral health and rehabilitation hospital, created by a joint venture between Antelope Valley Hospital and Kentucky-based Kindred Healthcare.The venture first announced plans for the 125,000-square-foot, two-story hospital in December. In total, 96 beds will be reserved for behavioral health patients, while 25 are designated for acute inpatient rehabilitation.The facility will take patients with acute mental health and substance abuse disorders, offering detoxification from alcohol and drugs as well as treatment for anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other behavioral health illnesses.A separate unit will serve patients dealing with the fallout from brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, neurological disorders, stroke and orthopedic surgery.Kindred, which focuses on specialty hospitals, will maintain controlling interest with 51 percent ownership. The Kentucky health care system will also manage day-to-day operations. Joint venture members expect to complete the hospital by the second or third financial quarter of 2023, while cost, official location and financing are still under discussion by both parties.“Building in California is something of an art rather than an exact science,” said Rob Marsh, chief operating officer for Kindred Behavioral Health. “We’re working with contractors, with our architect and design team to get a good idea on the cost. We’ll have that in the next quarter or two.”Generally, Marsh said, behavioral health beds in the state cost “multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars” to build, depending on location.“Oftentimes a joint venture will decide to utilize an outside agency such as a (real estate investment trust) to finance the construction or land acquisition, and whatever part then is leased back to the joint venture,” Marsh added. “We can also use capital from existing operations to fund (the hospital). We have a couple options we’re pursuing.”Under one roofCurrently, the joint venture partners are looking at three potential build sites in the Antelope Valley. It’s too early for renderings, but Marsh expects the facility will look similar to other Kindred locations, including Kindred Hospital – Brea and Kindred Hospital – Santa Ana, both transitional care operations.  At the new hospital, all rooms will be private and will serve patients of every age. The hospital will accept Medi-Cal, Medicaid and those without health insurance, Marsh said.He added that having mental health and rehabilitation under one roof in a no brainer.“When individuals require that physical rehabilitation, because of, let’s say, a car accident, often we find that their emotional state is just as compromised as their physical state — loss of income, loss of independence, loss of a sense of security,” Marsh explained. “Because we’re able to offer these services under one roof, we’re able to access our psychiatrists and therapists to help those patients that are in the physical therapy setting or in the acute rehab setting.”Continued Marsh: “The same thing on the other end, one of the pieces about behavioral health I’ve known in the industry is that very rarely is there an opportunity to work with patients who are physically debilitated, when they have an oppressing mental health need. In this particular case with Antelope Valley as our partner, we’re going to be able to help individuals who have severe depression, or are manic, and also have physical challenges that are preventing them from being completely independent or living their best lives.”The competition for this type of facility  is virtually nonexistent, according to A ntelope Valley Hospital Chief Executive  Ed Mirzabegian.Dignity Health – Northridge Hospital Medical Center has a pediatric site, he said, while a psych ward in Sylmar boasts about 30 beds. The closest full-service psychiatric hospital is the Department of State Hospitals – Metropolitan, near Downey. There are multiple private sites in Orange County too, he said.“In this part of (Los Angeles) County, there is nothing. Even if there was competition, the number of psychiatric patients are going up on a daily basis. It’s a disorder that no one wants to face. It’s pretty much needed in the Valley,” said Mirzabegian. “I’d like to have programs for pediatric and adolescent psych, geriatric. We did a market study and found that it was a pretty good thing.”“Our county can certainly benefit from an expanded network of mental health urgency care centers,” Jaime Garcia, vice president for Los Angeles County at the Hospital Association of Southern California. “They are an effective resource given that only 35 to 40 percent who visit a mental health urgent care require hospitalization. Many of these patients simply need a place to decompress from their crisis, or simply need a medication refill.”Bed shortageMarsh said that currently, L.A. County needs about 1,000 behavioral health beds, just to meet the minimum of what experts in the industry consider adequate for the population. “In the area surrounding Antelope Valley in particular, there is a need of about 100 inpatient behavioral health beds, and that’s considering everything that’s in the market right now,” he added.The County has 22 beds per 100,000 people; the state has 17 beds per 100,000 residents, according to L.A. County reports.Marsh expects the minimum number to easily grow to 200 beds within the next two years, and that’s not taking into account how the pandemic has exacerbated mental health conditions.“Demand is likely to increase as the pandemic further isolates people and exacerbates behavioral health conditions,” added Garcia.For comparison, AV Hospital currently has a psych unit with 28 beds. When the new hospital is complete, he plans to move all his behavioral operations into it.“All the employees become joint venture employees and all the people are going to work there,” he said.Mirzabegian plans to remodel AV hospital’s psych ward to handle regular patients.Both joint venture partners expect the hospital to stimulate the local economy, with medical professionals moving to the Antelope Valley to live and work. Marsh and Mirzabegian expect anywhere from 250 to 350 jobs created at the new hospital.Kindred is in talks with other hospital systems to build similar hospitals in Southern California, but nothing official as of yet.“There is literally no one from the private sector that is doing these kinds of hospitals,” Marsh noted. “We are the only entity that is actively pursuing these two unique service lines under one roof. There’s not another private or public freestanding hospital in the state of California that has these two services exclusively under one roof. This is a first for California.”Kindred’s California footprint consists mostly of what Marsh calls transitional care hospitals, formerly called long term acute care, acute rehab services and behavioral health programs.Currently, Kindred has 327 locations in 35 states; the greater L.A. region houses 11 Kindred facilities. The company’s annual revenues are about $2.7 billion.

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