Prisma Health plans to build a new $138 million inpatient behavioral health hospital in the Upstate that the organization will be a significant step forward in addressing the region’s growing need for enhanced access to cutting-edge behavioral health services.
Prisma hopes to begin site work in spring 2025, pending Certificate of Need approval, according to a news release. Construction is expected to take about two years.
The hospital will be supported with $100 million in state funds appropriated to the S.C. Department of Health and Human Services by the General Assembly, according to the Prisma news release. The three-story behavioral health hospital is slated to be built on 46 acres at the corner of U.S. Highway 123 and S.C. Highway 153 in Pickens County near Easley.
The 132,430-square-foot facility will be licensed for 112 beds that will replace Prisma Health’s 65-bed Marshall I. Pickens Psychiatric Hospital located on the Greenville Memorial Hospital campus, the release stated. As the only inpatient behavioral health facility in the Upstate to treat children, Prisma will quadruple the number of child and adolescent beds from 10 to 40 with the remaining 72 beds licensed for adults.
“This new facility will significantly improve the patient experience with current best-practice designs that provide a more healing, nurturing environment,” the release stated.
“South Carolina is no stranger to the behavioral health crisis sweeping our nation, and the inpatient and outpatient services in our state to support our citizens are woefully insufficient,” Gov. Henry McMaster said in the release. “This project is an important step forward in addressing the statewide need for an expansion of behavioral health services whenever and wherever possible.”
Prisma is completing its architectural and construction documents for the facility and has applied to the sate for a Certificate of Need which is required to commence construction.
The governor signed legislation in 2023 that eliminated the need for Certificates of Need in most cases, but the CON is still required until 2027 to build new hospitals, according to an Oct. 3, 2023, statement from McMaster.
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“This project is a powerful example of what we can accomplish through public-private partnerships and is a significant and much-needed step forward for our communities and state,” Mark O’Halla, president and CEO of Prisma Health, said in the release. “By doubling our inpatient capacity and creating a state-of-the-art, healing-centered facility, Prisma is bringing essential behavioral health services closer to home. As a safety-net provider, Prisma Health is committed to caring for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay, which means operating the facility with an annual financial loss. This project is only possible due to the state’s investment, which enables us to meet the growing need for behavioral health care in our communities. We are honored to partner with the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to address the critical need for compassionate, leading-edge behavioral health care in South Carolina, and extend our heartfelt thanks to Gov. McMaster and our state leaders for making such a meaningful investment in the future of behavioral health in South Carolina.”
The hospital will offer specialized care for children, adolescents, adults, older adults and those adult patients requiring more intensive care, the release said. Each patient care unit will include a combination of private and semi-private rooms.
“The construction of a new inpatient behavioral health facility is a continuation of our commitment to providing these essential services statewide,” said S.C. Speaker Murrell Smith, who represents Sumter. “The increase in space and services will help to fill the gap in available behavioral health services across South Carolina and will alleviate the stress on local and law enforcement resources that not having access to this care creates. Prisma has been an excellent partner in this endeavor, taking on a significant amount of the cost to operate and construct this facility. This type of public-private partnership is how South Carolina will continue to close the gap in behavioral health care.”
The “pivotal” $100 million state funding will be with one-time, non-recurring dollars and is intended to grow psychiatric inpatient and outpatient services that result in additional mental health care capacity for the state, the release said. The most recent State Health Plan showed a need for 211 additional inpatient behavioral health beds statewide.
The Upstate population has been growing and so are the needs of patients in mental health crisis requiring inpatient psychiatric care, according to Prisma Health, the largest health care organization in the state with facilities stretching from the Upstate to the Midlands. The number of patients admitted for psychiatric treatment has been steadily increasing over the past six years in the Upstate, with Pickens, Oconee and Greenville counties’ combined inpatient psychiatric admission rates jumping by nearly 50%.
Marshall I. Pickens Psychiatric Hospital, which opened in 1969, has what Prisma considers “extremely limited capacity” and can only serve about 1,500 patients per year. That means that each year approximately 1,200 patients who come to Upstate Prisma emergency departments needing inpatient psychiatric care must instead be transported to facilities as far as the coast.
Access to inpatient care for children can be especially challenging, with one in five U.S. children having a mental, emotional or behavioral disorder in a given year, according to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Marshall I. Pickens Psychiatric Hospital, which currently is licensed for only 10 beds for children and adolescents, is the only hospital in the Upstate that admits psychiatric patients aged 12 or younger. Many children are referred to other facilities in Columbia and Charleston, creating additional challenges for patients and their families, the release said.
“This new facility will enable our exceptional team to provide leading-edge care to our patients in an environment the patients deserve,” said Dr. Karen Lommel, the Robert A. Jolley Jr. Endowed Chair of Psychiatry and Community Health for Prisma Health in the Upstate. “Patients experiencing a mental health crisis deserve expert compassionate care in a healing, nurturing environment. Our new hospital will significantly increase access to this vitally needed care but will also keep families closer to home and their family-friend networks which can itself help in recovery.”
Rep. Bruce Bannister-R, Greenville, who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in the release, “This project and the expansion of behavioral health services in the Greenville and Upstate community is long overdue. The Prisma Health Marshall I. Pickens Psychiatric Hospital has served Greenville and Upstate families well for decades, and I am thrilled this public-private partnership will not only expand these services but expand access in the modern environment our community deserves.”
Sen. Thomas Alexander, president of the state Senate and elected from a district that includes Pickens County. Added: “Prisma Health’s leadership is a shining example of a public-private partnership dedicated to addressing the critical behavioral health needs facing our Upstate region and South Carolina. I am grateful for this partnership that is a vital step forward in increasing access to cutting-edge behavioral health services in our communities.”
But Prisma Health said additional beds are just part of the solution.
Over the past six years in the Upstate, Prisma has quadrupled its number of psychiatrists, advanced practice clinicians and physician trainees (resident and fellow physicians) to increase access to mental health services. It began a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship program in 2019 as well as a second adult psychiatry residency program in Greer in 2020 to help create a local training pipeline and ease the growing national shortage, the release said. The system has also partnered with community groups to provide local education and training opportunities.
In addition to the $138 million behavioral health hospital, Prisma has plans to spend approximately $7 million on facility projects for the Greenville Memorial Hospital campus associated with behavioral health services, which include expansion of intensive outpatient programs, according to the release.
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