HOLYOKE — Mercy Medical Center has long collaborated with other hospitals, organizations, and agencies to offer new and more integrated, sustainable pathways to behavioral healthcare. Such collaborative planning, the health system notes, is essential in developing creative and effective ways of matching patient needs with available resources.
As part of ongoing efforts to help patients access timely, appropriate psychiatric care, Mercy has been engaged with Health Partners New England (HPNE) to develop an opportunity that will further serve the needs of these patients and the local community. On Feb. 16, Mercy announced it has sold Providence Behavioral Health Hospital to HPNE, which will operate the facility under the name MiraVista Behavioral Health and resume operations of the Acute Treatment Service (detoxification), Clinical Stabilization Service (post-detoxification), and outpatient services, including the Intensive Outpatient Program, court-ordered services, and the Opioid Treatment Program without interruption of service.
Additionally, HPNE plans to establish inpatient psychiatric services at the facility, and is currently working with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to acquire licensure to provide up to 84 inpatient beds. The timeline for the opening of these inpatient beds is still being determined.
Mercy Medical Center will assist colleagues who are affected by the sale, where possible, with Trinity transfers, statutory benefits for employment loss, referrals for alternative employment, and further educational opportunities, and through cooperation with MiraVista for those seeking employment with the new owner.
Brightside for Families and Children will continue to provide services to the Western Mass. community under the umbrella of Mercy Medical Center/Trinity Health Of New England. Offices will remain in the former Providence Behavioral Health Hospital building under a lease agreement with HPNE.
This marks a return to the facility and these services for HPNE, which provided certain management services at Providence Behavioral Health Hospital for a three-year period beginning in 2011. In assuming ownership of behavioral-health services at this campus, HPNE brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise in behavioral-health service delivery, as well as a record of accomplishment in managing hospital inpatient and outpatient behavioral-health units, programs, and services.
