St. Elizabeth Begins Construction on New Facility
ERLANGER, Ky. — St. Elizabeth Healthcare in partnership with SUN Behavioral Health began construction on a new $40 million facility on Feb. 19 in Erlanger. The project kicked off with a groundbreaking attended by Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, St. Elizabeth CEO Garren Colvin, St. Elizabeth Board Chairman Jim Votruba and SUN CEO Steve Page. The new facility will have a focus on mental health and addiction services, according to Cincinnati Business Journal.
The new hospital will work with Children’s Home of Northern Kentucky to help with the needs of adolescent behavioral health care and addiction treatment. With drug abuse reaching epidemic levels in the Greater Cincinnati area, providing the extra facilities quickly has become more important. The 149,000-square-foot SUN Behavioral Health Hospital will include 197 treatment beds for children, adolescents and adults, and will open in the second half of 2017.
Although the treatment facility will be quite large, Cincinnati-based Danis Construction and New Jersey-based NK Architects have designed it to have a more intimate feel for the patients, Page told the Cincinnati Business Journal. The hospital will include a gym, internal courtyards and dining areas.
An around-the-clock admissions office will allow patients to forego a trip to the emergency room and allow them to check into the treatment facility straight away, according to the Cincinnati Business Journal. SUN, which stands for Solving Unmet Needs has a 75 percent stake in the for-profit hospital, while St. Elizabeth Healthcare holds a 25 percent stake.
The facility will be able to employ 400 people, with 270 of the positions being newly created. In May 2015, SUN took over managing the behavioral health units at the St. Elizabeth facility, and approximately 100 of those who work in the units will become SUN employees by the end of 2016. The companies hope to hire 11 psychiatrists, two addiction medicine specialists and two internal medicine doctors as well as nurses, psychologists, social workers, therapists and intake specialists, according to Cincinnati Business Journal.
SUN and St. Elizabeth will spend approximately $2 million of the project budget to become licensed to have 57 short -term, inpatient psychiatric beds from NorthKey Community Care. More than 40 NorthKey employees will become SUN employees, as SUN currently runs the NorthKey operations as well. St. Elizabeth Hospital will move 140 of its behavioral health and chemical dependency beds to the new facility, while also keeping the nearby Falmouth Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center in operation.