Since Chestnut Hill Hospital joined Temple Health, clinical teams have been able to leverage expertise from across the Health System to bring new leading-edge — and enhance existing — services in the Chestnut Hill community.
One especially impactful success? The hospital’s Senior Behavioral Health Unit, which has nearly doubled its number of patients in the last year.
“It’s a remarkable turnaround,” says Richard Newell, MPT, DPT, President & CEO of Temple Health-Chestnut Hill Hospital. “Having a thriving Senior Behavioral Health Unit in Chestnut Hill really matters, because these services are very rare and getting rarer. We want our seniors to have a place to go when they need help, and we’re proud to provide this exceptional care to our community.”
Leading an Enhancement in Care
The transformation began when Newell reached out to John Robison, Executive Director of TUH-Episcopal Campus, who sent his team of Behavioral Health experts—including Episcopal’s Chief Medical Officer, Kevin Caputo, MD, its Director of Behavioral Health, LJ Rasi, and Behavioral Health Community Liaison Yvonne Williams—to revamp the unit.
“Having a dedicated nursing leader with Behavioral Health expertise was essential, so they helped us find Wendy Campbell, who’s now our Senior Nurse Manager,” Newell recalls. “Yvonne also started handling our admissions, and we really encouraged our team to be more proactive about saying yes to admits.”
In the past, the unit had only accepted patients ages 65 and above, but they soon established more inclusive guidelines for those seeking care. “Now, we’ll see patients in their mid-50s,” Newell explains. “If there’s a need, we don’t want to exclude them.”
With Dr. Caputo mentoring providers and providing training on best practices, the unit started accepting patients on 302 holds. “We’re also becoming credentialed with Community Behavioral Health (CBH), the insurance provider for many of Philadelphia’s Behavioral Health patients,” Newell says. “That will open the door for a lot of patients who need our services.”
A Positive, High-Quality Environment
A higher daily census also means a more positive experience for Senior Behavioral Health patients.
“A big part of inpatient Behavioral Health treatment is the work that’s done in group settings,” Rasi explains. “When there are only a few patients on the unit, you can’t have the same productive, dynamic groups that you can hold with 18-20 patients.”
“Our patients are very social,” agrees Newell. “Group therapy, meals—it's much easier to do those things with a full unit. It’s a much livelier environment, and patients tend to respond better to treatment.”
Staff have also embraced the changes, improving morale and enhancing quality of care. In an especially exciting move, the unit has welcomed physician Jeffery Simon, MD—who, Newell shares, is “highly engaged with patients and team members.”
“The unit is just completely different than six months ago,” Rasi says. “Now, you can feel a sense of success.”
Leveraging Health System Expertise
Newell is especially grateful for the Episcopal team’s expertise, which has been an essential part of the unit’s growth.
“This isn’t in LJ or Yvonne’s job description,” he notes. “They’re dedicating their time and resources to us on top of their regular responsibilities. They didn’t have to do this, but they are, because they’re committed to growing the Behavioral Health service line across Temple. They’ve been showing up every week with deliverables and making it work—and without them, we wouldn’t have been successful.”
“That’s why being part of Temple Health is so important,” Newell continues. “Because we can bring in those experts from across the Health System who know how to do certain things better than anyone, and we can use their knowledge to provide essential services in our community.”
Recognizing and Addressing a Need
Newell and his team plan to build on the Senior Behavioral Health Unit’s success by exploring opportunities to provide outpatient follow-up care and increasing those for graduate medical education. They’re also looking to grow their footprint by expanding the number of counties from which they can accept patients on 302 holds.
“We’ve been getting a lot of calls from upstate Pennsylvania about whether we can accept patients, because there really aren’t units like this there,” Rasi explains. “Right now, we can’t take 302 patients that don’t originate in Philadelphia or Montgomery County, but because the need is clearly there, we’re working to change that.”
“It’s a lot like what Temple did with the new Women & Families Hospital,” says Newell. “Everyone else is closing maternity services, but Temple recognized the need and built something that can serve our community. That’s what we’re doing here—finding a need and addressing it.”