Guest Column: Partnering to Support Montana's Behavioral Health Continuum
Dec. 11, 2023
Original guest column in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle can be found here.
By Anne Thomas
During this season of gratitude, the hearts of your care team at Bozeman Health are full. Working together with community partners, our regional care continuum is being rebuilt with compassion by dozens of organizations, community members, and practitioners. We recognize that no single organization can support the entire continuum of services our community needs, and we are thankful for our fellow Gallatin Behavioral Health Coalition members who are committed to achieving this goal as a community. The work of the Coalition is leading to improved health outcomes for residents and visitors alike and building a strong foundation upon which new services can further support our friends, family, and neighbors.
The origins of the Coalition spring from Bozeman Health’s own journey to better respond to the health needs of our community. Prior to 2017, Bozeman Health had no dedicated behavioral health staff and limited services beyond a partnership supporting crisis care in our emergency department. This same year, $200 million in behavioral health funding was cut from Montana’s Department of Health and Human Services, gutting case management and destabilizing Montana’s main crisis care provider. This led to the closure of crisis facilities in Bozeman and eight other communities. Since then, Bozeman Health has heavily invested in behavioral health services and expanded collaborative partnerships to strengthen the broader continuum.
We now employ a dynamic, multi-disciplinary team of over 35, made up of psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, crisis intervention specialists, behavioral health specialists, nurse navigators, registered nurses, patient care technicians, and peer support specialists across the care system and care sites. Bozeman Health services now support substantial portions of the care continuum — from integrated behavioral health in women’s services and NICU, outpatient psychiatric services, and psychiatric emergency services (PES), which we opened one year ago — the only crisis receiving facility in the region.
PES is designed to deliver an enhanced level of care for up to five patients at a time, providing a therapeutic environment for individuals experiencing acute behavioral health needs. Our PES area is located adjacent to the emergency department. We were able to quickly operationalize these services thanks to the support of our community through Bozeman Health Foundation donors and a grant from the City of Bozeman.
On average, Bozeman Health teams care for 30-35 behavioral health patients each day. The number of patients presenting to our emergency department experiencing a mental health crisis is growing. Most patients cared for by our PES teams sought care due to suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, or psychosis. Thanks to our PES care team, the number of patients who require care at the state hospital each month has gone down by nearly 70%.
We aim to expand integrated behavioral health in more of our clinics, recruit a child psychiatrist, and continue to partner with regional youth inpatient service specialists to provide this very specialized care to the highest clinical expectations.
Planning, design, construction, and workforce recruitment are ongoing for our adult inpatient psychiatric unit, which will be located inside Deaconess. Construction completion is estimated for late 2024 and opening planned in 2025.
Our 14-bed adult inpatient psychiatric unit is being intentionally designed to support safe, compassionate, therapeutic services and crisis stabilization close to home. Programming for this unit will include case management services, individual and group counseling, medication management, occupational therapy, nursing support and education, and vocational support. Providing therapeutic modalities will ensure patients are better equipped to transition back to their home community and experience successful outcomes in their mental health maintenance. This unit will have two rooms to support involuntary care, with a goal of further reducing the number of patients who must travel for services when a higher level of care is required.
These new services are possible because of our dedicated care team members who demonstrate each day an enduring commitment to meet the behavioral health needs of our community. Please join us in sharing gratitude for our many community members — from law enforcement, to clinicians, peer support specialists, service providers, family members, and beyond — who keep our collective safety net strong as we continue to build a more resilient continuum of care to better support the mental health needs of our region.
Dr. Anne Thomas is the medical director at Bozeman Health and works in the behavioral health department.