Sinai Health System Expanding Behavioral Health Services

Sinai Health System Expanding Behavioral Health Services

At a time when the results of unmet behavioral healthcare and crisis intervention needs are making headlines, Sinai Health System is expanding its decades-long commitment to community by making a multimillion investment in mental health services for the west and southwest sides of Chicago. The new services include intensive day, outpatient and expanded inpatient treatment, and Chicago’s first crisis stabilization unit, which provides 24-hour access to care for patients experiencing a mental health emergency.

The service expansion comes as Chicagoans are finding it hard to access the behavioral healthcare they need. In recent years, the City of Chicago has closed half of its mental health clinics and the State has cut more than 30 percent of its budget for mental health services. In fact, Cook County Jail is currently the largest provider of mental health services in Illinois, and police are increasingly dealing with violence spawned from addiction and mental health crises.

“We know that sixty percent of those diagnosed with mental illnesses never receive treatment, that the Chicago Police are called to pick up individuals who are experiencing mental health crises and that our jails and emergency rooms regularly receive mental health patients. Emergency departments are not always the right setting for this type of vulnerable patient,” said Sinai Health System President and CEO Karen Teitelbaum. “Our crisis stabilization unit, open since July, has already seen the power of timely treatment in a therapeutically appropriate, quiet, safe environment.”

To meet this need in its communities which have some of the lowest access to care, Sinai Health System is introducing a wide range of new behavioral health services at and near its Holy Cross Hospital, featuring: A new outpatient mental health clinic serving children and adults that can accommodate 300 patient visits per week. In addition to traditional individual and group therapy, the clinic will feature intensive day treatment programming for up to 30 patients at a time. The clinic will be located at 2601 W. Marquette Road and will be open in summer 2016. A new dedicated adult inpatient behavioral health unit with 24 beds at Holy Cross Hospital opening in fall 2016.

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