Redmond wants psych unit
The hospital is also interested in a residency program for psychiatric care.
Redmond Regional Medical Center leaders are hoping a third application for an in-patient psychiatric unit will be successful.
Redmond CEO John Quinlivan has confirmed that a letter of intent for the unit has to be submitted to the Department of Community Health by the end of January and the application itself would have to be completed by the end of February.
Quinlivan and Dr. Daniel Robitshek, director of Redmond’s internal medicine residency program, are equally interested in developing a residency program in psychiatry.
Rome and Northwest Georgia need additional in-patient beds to serve mental health patients, Quinlivan said.
The state agency that issues certificates of need for such projects has disagreed with Redmond on the first two applications, stating there is already sufficient bed capacity in the region.
Kurt Stuenkel, president and CEO of Floyd Medical Center in Rome, said his hospital would once again object to a certificate of need for the in-patient psych unit at Redmond. Floyd has a 53-bed unit now known as Willowbrooke at Floyd.
“We feel that we are very well equipped and have the capacity to meet all of the regional healthcare needs,” Stuenkel said.
Quinlivan said more patients migrate out of the Northwest Georgia service delivery area for behavioral health services than any other area of the state.
“In fact, 40 percent more patients out-migrate (from this region) than they do from the next highest region,” Quinlivan said. “And more than twice the state average out-migrate. We think that demonstrates there just aren’t enough behavioral health beds.”
Stuenkel said another unit would have an adverse impact on existing providers. “That’s one of the foundational tenets of certificate of need,” Stuenkel said.
Quinlivan said one of the
factors he believes that leads many patients to leave the Rome area is a shortage of psychiatrists.
“If we had more psychiatrists, the demand for in-patients care might actually go down because there would be more out-patients services available,” Quinlivan suggested.
Bonnie Moore and her husband Jim Moore, who head a local mental health advocacy group, said the state needs to keep in mind the area lost 200 beds when the state-run Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital shut down in 2011. “We’re supposed to be going
to a community-based service system, and sending these patients to Atlanta and beyond certainly isn’t community based,” Bonnie Moore said.
Robitshek said if Redmond were to be approved for a new in-patient behavioral health unit, the hospital would seek to develop a psychiatric residency program and bring in perhaps four or five young psychiatrists-in-training.
Since Redmond started its internal medicine residency program in 2016, the hospital has a fiveyear window to develop other residency programs.
The number of residency programs is limited solely by the capacity of the hospital and medical community to provide appropriate training as determined by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
Redmond is taking applications for its second-class of 10 internal medicine residents. Robitshek said the hospital is in the process of interviewing 130 candidates for those positions.
“If we can bring academia to the community, this is where the future of graduate medical education is,” Robitshek said.