The Status Of Mental Health Care At EvergreenHealth

 

"The many colors of  bipolar mood disorder"
Dale Chihuly art (Internet) 

The National Association of Mental Health says 1 in 5 Americans struggle with a mental health condition in a given year and only half are treated.  COVID brings this home.

This Spring, EvergreenHealth's seven commissioners and CEO Palazzo approved  psychiatric and therapy treatment for their two Emergency Departments and three of their Urgent Care clinics. This is a giant leap forward for EvergreenHealth (Evergreen) and the community. The COO of Trauma is putting the program together. She's hiring psychiatrists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and advanced social workers; it will be remote and in-person. Evergreen is community-owned and a levy lid-lift may be proposed this year in support of this program and others.   

Some of the levy-supported services today are:  EPIC (MyChart,) "Community Healthcare Access Teams," Grief, Palliative and Hospice care services, Geriatric services, a "Mental Health First Aid Kit" program for LWSD student suicide prevention, and perinatal mood and anxiety maternity care.  

The Board considered an "Outpatient Mental Health Urgent Care" clinic in 2020 but momentum was lost by the onset of the pandemic.  Providence in Everett pioneered one of the first in the Nation before the pandemic. It proved a great success and they may find space for one.  

Evergreen educates the community. Every very month they reserve a room to co-host NAMI Eastside meetings featuring outside speakers.  Evergreen once sponsored a free community awareness forum focused on "the 1 in 4 who have a mental health disease."  

Years ago, Evergreen planned a 14-transitional care unit to keep acute mentally-ill patients from being boarded in their emergency departments.  Later they decided not to build the unit for staffing reasons. Instead, the emergency department was remodeled to partition seven "Rainier beds" from the working part of the department.  This brought safety and quiet for the staff and patients until services could be found.  Today, the new CONNECTIONS Crisis Response Center in Kirkland will take this burden off Evergreen's Emergency Departments.

May is "Mental Health Awareness Month." Glass artist Dale Chihuly struggled with his mental health.  At 76, and at the peak of his a decades-long glass artist career he "came out" revealing his bipolar mood disorder in an interview with The Associated Press.  Several photos of his amazing glass art are included in this article.  

Brain disorders are generational in my family. 

-- Bob Yoder, 6/5/2024