Prisma Health plans to build a new $138 million inpatient
behavioral health hospital in the Upstate that officials said will take a
significant step forward in addressing the region’s growing need for enhanced
access to cutting-edge behavioral health services.
Prisma hopes to begin site work in spring 2025, pending
Certificate of Need approval. Construction is expected to take approximately
two years.
The hospital will be supported with $100 million in state
funds appropriated to the S.C. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)
by the state’s General Assembly.
The three-story behavioral health hospital is slated to be
built on 46 acres at the corner of U.S. 123 and S.C. 153 in Pickens County.
The 132,430-square-foot facility will be licensed for 112
beds that will replace Prisma Health’s 65-bed Marshall I. Pickens Psychiatric
hospital (MIPH) on the Greenville Memorial Hospital campus.
As the only inpatient behavioral health facility in the
Upstate to treat children, Prisma will quadruple the number of child and
adolescent beds from 10 to 40 with the remaining 72 beds licensed for adults.
“South Carolina is no stranger to the behavioral health
crisis sweeping our nation, and the inpatient and outpatient services in our
state to support our citizens are woefully insufficient,” said S.C. Gov. Henry
McMaster.
He added, “This project is an important step forward in
addressing the statewide need for an expansion of behavioral health services
whenever and wherever possible.”
Prisma is completing its architectural and construction
documents for the facility and has applied to the state for a Certificate of
Need which is required to begin construction.
“This project is a powerful example of what we can
accomplish through public-private partnerships and is a significant and
much-needed step forward for our communities and state,” said Mark O’Halla, president
and CEO of Prisma Health.
He added, “By doubling our inpatient capacity and creating a
state-of-the-art, healing-centered facility, Prisma is bringing essential
behavioral health services closer to home. As a safety-net provider, Prisma
Health is committed to caring for all patients, regardless of their ability to
pay, which means operating the facility with an annual financial loss.”
Further, he said, “This project is only possible due to the
state’s investment, which enables us to meet the growing need for behavioral
health care in our communities.”
The hospital will offer specialized care for children,
adolescents, adults, older adults and those adult patients requiring more
intensive care. Each patient care unit will include a combination of private
and semi-private rooms.
Officials said the pivotal $100 million state funding will be with
one-time, non-recurring dollars and is intended to grow psychiatric inpatient
and outpatient services that result in additional mental health care capacity
for the state.
The most recent State Health Plan showed a need for 211
additional inpatient behavioral health beds statewide.
Officials said the number of patients admitted for
psychiatric treatment has been steadily increasing over the past six years in
the Upstate, with Pickens, Oconee and Greenville counties’ combined inpatient
psychiatric admission rates jumping by nearly 50 percent.
MIPH, which opened in 1969, has limited capacity and can
only serve about 1,500 patients per year.
That means that each year
approximately 1,200 patients who come to Upstate Prisma emergency departments
needing inpatient psychiatric care must instead be transported to facilities as
far as the coast.
Officials said access to inpatient care for children can be
especially challenging, with one in five U.S. children having a mental,
emotional or behavioral disorder in a given year, according to the American
Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
MIPH, which is licensed for only 10 beds for children and
adolescents, is the only hospital in the Upstate that admits psychiatric
patients aged 12 or younger.
Many children are referred to other facilities in Columbia
and Charleston, creating additional challenges for patients and their families.
The new facility will be licensed for 40 child and
adolescent beds.
State Rep. Bruce Bannister, R Greenville, chairman of the
House Ways and Means Committee, said, “This project and the expansion of
behavioral health services in the Greenville and Upstate community is long
overdue.”
He added, “The Prisma Health Marshall I. Pickens Psychiatric Hospital has served
Greenville and Upstate families well for decades, and I am thrilled this
public-private partnership will not only expand these services but expand
access in the modern environment our community deserves.”
But additional beds are just part of the solution.
Over the past six years in the Upstate, Prisma has
quadrupled its number of psychiatrists, advanced practice clinicians and
physician trainees (resident and fellow physicians) to increase access to
mental health services.
It began a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship
program in 2019 as well as a second adult psychiatry residency program in Greer
in 2020 to help create a local training pipeline and ease the growing national
shortage.
The system has also partnered with community groups to
provide local education and training opportunities.
In addition to the $138 million behavioral health hospital,
Prisma plans to spend approximately $7 million on facility projects for the
Greenville Memorial Hospital campus associated with behavioral health services,
which include expansion of intensive outpatient programs.