|
Sarasota County has one public
receiving facility for Baker Act patients (Coastal Behavioral Healthcare’s
Crisis Stabilization Unit) and two private receiving facilities (Sarasota
Memorial Hospital’s Bayside Center and Venice-Bon Secours Hospital). For
months now, all three receiving facilities have been over-capacity almost on
a daily basis, with patients needing crisis stabilization and assessment
backing up into Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s emergency room (which
compromises the hospital’s ability to provide timely emergency medical
treatment). The causes of this situation include rapid population growth in
the county, the closing last year of G. Pierce Wood Memorial Hospital in
Arcadia and Charter Glades Psychiatric Hospital in Ft. Myers, very modest
increases by the Legislature in funding for additional CSU beds in recent
years, and the inability of agencies to serve persons before they reach a
crisis point in their lives.
While there is general agreement
on the causes of the problem, solutions are harder to come by. Increased
state funding for additional beds will help address the issue, but all of
the players agree that what is really needed is a cooperative,
community-wide effort to better coordinate the existing acute care system
and seek creative solutions. For that reason, Coastal Behavioral HealthCare
and Sarasota Memorial Hospital approached the Community Alliance’s Executive
Committee with a request that a study of the County’s acute care system be
undertaken as the Alliance’s first “Issue Analysis”. The Steering Committee
agreed that this issue was of critical importance to the community and
should be analyzed further.
The five agencies which have a
stake in providing acute care services in the county (Coastal Behavioral
Healthcare, Sarasota Memorial Hospital, the
Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, First Step of Sarasota, and Sarasota
County Government) have joined together to address the issue and have agreed
to share the cost of bringing in a consultant from USF’s Florida Mental
Health Institute to facilitate the analysis. In addition to representatives
of these six agencies and DCF’s SunCoast Region, members of the
Planning/Outcomes Work Group and other local enforcement agencies will
constitute the Issue Analysis Task Force. The task force has begun its
analytical work and a final report is expected by February, 2003.
Acute
Care Crisis System Issue Analysis Task Force
Ad-hoc task forces such as the
Issue Analysis Task Force address specific issues that come before the Alliance which are critical to
the human services community. The Alliance has undertaken an analysis of the
county’s acute care system as it’s first project.
-
Ken Alexander, Sarasota
Memorial Hospital Bayside Center
-
Dr. Rye Bell, Venice-Bon
Secours Behavioral Health Program
-
Dave Beesley, First Step of
Sarasota
-
Bill Broughton, Sarasota
County Intergovernmental Relations Coordinator
-
MaryLee Bussard, SCOPE
-
Tim Dutton, SCOPE
-
Capt. Jerry Eggleston,
Sarasota County Sheriff's Office
-
Joan Geyer, National
Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI)
-
Michael Grant, Grant Medical
Transportation
-
Rik Jimison, Sarasota County
Health and Human Services
-
Kathy Kleinlein, Diocese of
Venice
-
Bill Little, Sarasota County
Health and Human Services
-
Amy Merrill, Manatee County
Community Services
-
Susan Nunnally, DCF-SunCoast
Region, Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Program
-
Mary Ruiz, Manatee Glens
-
James Schulz, Sarasota
County Health and Human Services
-
Lt. George Scott, Sarasota
County Sheriff's Office
-
Debbie Spellman,
DCF-SunCoast Region, Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Program
-
Chip Taylor, Sarasota County
Health and Human Services
-
Dr. Jerry Thompson, Coastal
Behavioral Healthcare
-
Davis Tornabene, Public
Defenders Office, Twelfth Judicial Circuit
-
Jeff Watts, DCF-SunCoast
Region, Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Program
Link to
"Acute
Care Issue Analysis Behavioral Healthcare Report"
FMHI Faculty Consultant: Mark
Engelhardt
|
