CEO: New Hospital to Address Growing Need
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe manager of the new Hospital for Behavioral Health in Plainfield says the $25 million facility will fill a need in central Indiana. Officials broke ground Monday on the hospital, which will be part of the Hendricks Regional Health campus and create more than 250 jobs. Richard Kresch, who also serves as chief executive officer of Texas-based parent company US HealthVest, says communities in Indiana and throughout the country have seen a higher utilization of behavioral health services.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Kresch said Plainfield was chosen after conducting an analysis of market needs.
“We look at the demand, the available beds, the occupancy of existing beds, the out-migration of people from one area to another to obtain treatment, a number of factors,” said Kresch. “Then, we were interested in developing some sort of community partnership in the project so through the Indiana Hospital Association, we were introduced to the Hendricks (Regional Health) folks and there was a good alignment of our interest in the kind of services we were looking to develop and that grew into this project.”
Kresch says while behavioral health has always been an issue, there has been a general increase in the need for services over the past several years.
“There’s a lessening of stigma about obtaining and seeking out treatment when it’s necessary. As far as whether or not there’s sort of a higher prevalence of various types of serious mental illness in the community, I don’t really know, but certainly there are more people seeking treatment over the last 5-10 years.”
Kresch says the long-term goal for the hospital is to contribute to the overall healthcare services that are needed in the community.
“One of the problems in Indiana and really throughout the whole country has been the psychiatric patients get taken to the emergency departments of medical/surgical hospitals and they’re not really that well equipped to handle them, but there’s no place to refer them out to because the beds are all occupied. So part of the goal here is to get patients to the appropriate treatment resources that are needed and not have them boarding in hospital EDs for days, which sometimes happens now.”
While the ceremonial groundbreaking took place Monday, Kresch said infrastructure work on the project, such as drainage and utilities, is already complete. He says the 77,000-square-foot facility is expected to be complete by the end of the year, with operations beginning in early 2021.
Plans for the project were originally announced in late 2018. Hendricks Regional Health Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer Gary Everling joined Business of Health Reporter Kylie Veleta to talk about the hospital:
Kresch said Plainfield was chosen after conducting an analysis of market needs.
