Saint Thomas, Acadia plan psychiatric inpatient hospital in Nashville

NASHVILLE – Saint Thomas Health and Acadia Healthcare  have entered into a joint venture to expand and improve access to behavioral healthcare in Nashville, Tennessee.

The partnership will include the establishment of a new 76-bed psychiatric inpatient hospital at Metro Center in Nashville, encompassing 40 adult psychiatric beds and 36 geriatric psychiatric beds.

Saint Thomas Health will relocate the existing 24 geriatric psychiatric beds at Saint Thomas West Hospital to develop the planned freestanding hospital. As a part of this strategy, Saint Thomas Health plans to convert the existing geriatric psychiatric unit to a critical care unit needed to support the rising acuity levels at Saint Thomas West.

“Our partnership with Acadia Healthcare is atransformational initiative that aligns fully with our mission of holistically serving all persons with special attention to those who are poor and vulnerable,” said Tim Adams, president and CEO of Saint Thomas Health. “This population of patients is grossly underserved, making individuals who suffer from mental illness one of the most vulnerable in the communities Saint Thomas Health serves.”

The state-of-the-art behavioral health hospital is planned for 300 Great Circle Road in Nashville. Pending certificate of need approvals, construction would begin in early 2019.

Headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee, Acadia Healthcare is a leading and well-respected international provider of behavioral healthcare with almost 600 behavioral health facilities in the United States, United Kingdom, and Puerto Rico.

This joint venture is the latest in a series of successful partnerships that Acadia Healthcare has entered into with regional hospital systems to better serve the behavioral health care needs in communities across the country.

“We are delighted to enter this joint venture partnership with Saint Thomas Health,” said Joey Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Acadia. “A central focus at Acadia has long been the consistent expansion of our capability to meet the growing behavioral health needs of our local communities. By becoming a part of Saint Thomas Health’s clinically integrated system of care through this joint venture, we are taking a significant step toward fulfilling this goal in Middle Tennessee.”

The demand for behavioral healthcare across the country and in Middle Tennessee is extraordinary today, and projections for the future indicate demand will only increase.

According to the Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, one in six adults in the United States live with a mental illness, and more than seventy five percent of these individuals are untreated.

Saint Thomas Health currently has psychiatric programs at Saint Thomas West, River Park, Stones River and Highlands Hospitals, but only one of these programs serves the adult population, identified as patients younger than 65 years old.

Saint Thomas Health is a part of Ascension, the nation’s largest Catholic and non-profit health system.  Ascension has made a commitment to focus on behavioral health needs across the country as part of the health system’s strategic direction.

In Tennessee, Ascension’s Saint Thomas Health operates nine hospitals in addition to a comprehensive network of affiliated joint ventures, medical practices, clinics and rehabilitation facilities that cover a 68-county area and employ more than 8,000 associates.

Across the state, Saint Thomas Health provided more than $92 million in community benefit and care of persons living in poverty in fiscal year 2017. Serving Tennessee for 15 years, Ascension is a faith-based healthcare organization committed to delivering compassionate, personalized care to all, with special attention to persons living in poverty and those most vulnerable.

Ascension is the largest non-profit health system in the U.S. and the world’s largest Catholic health system, operating more than 2,600 sites of care – including 151 hospitals and more than 50 senior living facilities – in 22 states and the District of Columbia.

Acadia Healthcare, Inc., headquartered in Franklin, Tenn., provides behavioral healthcare services through a network of 584 behavioral health facilities with approximately 17,800 beds in 40 states, the United Kingdom and Puerto Rico.

Acadia provides behavioral health and addiction services to its patients in a variety of settings, including inpatient psychiatric hospitals, specialty treatment facilities, residential treatment centers and outpatient clinics.

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