UMC, Clark County join forces to open mental health center
Clark County and University Medical Center opened the county’s first crisis stabilization center Tuesday, providing new options for mental health crisis care.
The UMC Crisis Stabilization Center’s goal is to stabilize patients and connect them with community resources as an alternative to emergency rooms and jails. It will be open 24/7 to provide short-term psychiatric crisis and detox stabilization for anyone, regardless of insurance status.
“Mental health emergencies don’t wait for convenient locations or business hours, and families deserve immediate, appropriate care when they’re most in need,” Clark County Commissioner William McCurdy II said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the center.
The center, at 5409 E. Lake Mead Blvd. in North Las Vegas, is designed to allow the quick drop-off of individuals in crisis by law enforcement and emergency medical services personnel. The center also takes walk-ins.
“This facility is located where it is because we understand that access to mental care should never depend on geography or on transportation barriers,” McCurdy II said.
‘As comfortable as possible’
Patients can receive medical screenings, psychiatric evaluations, prescriptions, solution-focused therapies and case management during their stay.
The facility will be staffed with UMC nurses and mental health advanced practice registered nurses and licensed clinical social workers from Clark County.
The center doesn’t have traditional hospital beds or bays; patients are meant to leave within the day. Instead, 35 outpatient recliner chairs are provided in the treatment rooms.
“They really allow the patients to relax, decompress and really regain some stability so we can get them connected back into the community,” said Bud Schawl, executive director of UMC Post-Acute Care Services.
The rooms are meant to feel non-clinical, like a living room, providing a calming environment with TVs and light music playing in the background.
Throughout the center, there are offices for individualized therapy and evaluations, as well as group therapy rooms with board and card games for patients.
The center is also comprised of an intake center, where patients can change into paper scrubs if needed. The center is equipped with two laundry rooms to provide patients with clean clothes before discharge.
Within intake, there is a small in-house laboratory and medical screening office to ensure patients are physically stable. Patients should be out of crisis within 24 hours of admittance and prepared for the next steps in their behavioral health care journey. Social workers will connect patients with transitional or emergency housing and outpatient therapy appointments.
“This is really all about not institutionalizing individuals,” Schawl said. “We’re really trying to make this as comfortable as possible for our patients to show up.”
UMC CEO Mason Van Houweling said the center fills a need for behavioral health care in Clark County. He said there is a need for more than one stabilization center, especially as the county’s population keeps growing.
“The gaps of behavioral health care and services are becoming more and more apparent, and we’re already planning the next one,” he said.
Contact Megan Howard at mhoward@reviewjournal.com. Follow her on X at @meganmhxward.
