Cuyahoga County health officials are looking at space in Old Brooklyn Medical Center to offer behavioral health services beginning in 2025.
Last year, the ADAMHS Board received a $6.8 million grant from the Ohio Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services to open a new center in an effort to expand behavioral health crisis care in Cuyahoga County.
Members with the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS) Board of Cuyahoga County met with MetroHealth System officials in mid-December and toured a vacant first-floor space in the MetroHealth Old Brooklyn Medical Center.
Dr. Olusegun Ishmael, chief operating officer and president of the hospital division, said MetroHealth intends to open the new center in mid-2025 but may launch the emergency psychiatric department sooner.
In the meantime, St. Vincent Charity Community Health Center has agreed to keep its emergency psychiatric services open, said Scott Osiecki, the ADAMHS Board’s CEO.
New crisis center will have a ‘living room’ for patients
The behavioral health crisis center will include three phases, which will open to patients as they are ready, Osiecki said. The health crisis center will have emergency psychiatric services with 15 beds, a crisis stabilization unit with 15 more beds, and a living room.
Living room models are a new concept for crisis centers where people can talk informally to a behavioral health professional or someone with lived experience. The Old Brooklyn facility’s living room will offer patients with mental illness who may be experiencing a crisis a place to rest and recover and get connected to resources or to their doctors if they need a prescription refill.
The living room setting can address mental health crises earlier and avoid the need to be admitted to a psychiatric department.
“You’re trying to get them the care they need as soon as possible to avoid the downstream effects of not having it there,” said Jim Bicak, senior vice president for facilities, construction and campus transformation with MetroHealth.
Osiecki said part of the $6.8 million grant will also go toward designing the center, buying equipment and paying for some startup costs. He said the ADAMHS Board will pay for yearly operating costs. MetroHealth will be the service provider.
Mental health services could help divert people from jail
The ADAMHS Board is also talking to county officials about including a detox center in the new space. That service is part of the county’s diversion center, which the ADAMHS Board also manages, Osiecki said. The diversion center offers mental health and substance use treatment to people accused of committing low-level offenses who would otherwise be taken to jail.
If the behavioral health crisis center includes detox services, the county would help with funding. County officials have also talked about opening a diversion center at a future jail campus in Garfield Heights.
Nationally, research has shown about 20% of jail inmates live with mental illness. Ishmael said he hopes the new center will help divert people from the criminal legal system and get them needed mental health treatment.
Mental health awareness and diagnoses is growing nationally, while mental health care providers are decreasing, he said.
“So what we’re trying to do is bring those providers of those services up, as the community clearly needs it,” Ishmael said.
St. Vincent Charity Community Health Center location falls through
Officials with the ADAMHS Board and MetroHealth System said original plans to open the center at St. Vincent Charity Community Health Center fell through.
When the state approved funding last year, the ADAMHS Board said the center would be a collaboration between MetroHealth and St. Vincent Charity. The center was set to open in a building on the community health center’s campus in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood. ADAMHS Board officials had planned to open the crisis center in the fall of 2024.
In November, St. Vincent officials told the ADAMHS Board the location would not work as a space for the new center, Osiecki said.
St. Vincent health officials confirmed in a statement to Signal Cleveland that the building is in need of repair and could not support a behavioral health center.
The state’s grant is one-time funding. Officials are looking at the best possible way to use that money and bring behavioral health services to the Cleveland area, Ishmael said.
“We just want to be able to have two options available,” he said. “Because we’re dedicated to making sure this project gets off the ground because it provides a needed service in the community.”
