By Kaitlin Durbin
cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio 鈥� It鈥檚 first week open, Cuyahoga County鈥檚 new 24-hour crisis center saw 71 patients.
The first of them arrived at 8:15 a.m. last Monday morning, shortly after , Eric Morse, president and CEO of The Centers, which runs the facility, told and The Plain Dealer.
鈥淭hat speaks to the need,鈥� he said.
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The majority of patients were walk-ins, taking advantage of the self-serve and 鈥渘o wrong door鈥� entry that the new crisis center promised. Twenty-five percent, or 18, people were brought in by Cleveland police officers, Morse said. Three were brought in by ambulance services.
That鈥檚 30% of patients being brought in for evaluations by law enforcement, Morse noted. It鈥檚 really only one agency so far, he said, but the numbers show promise for a model that truly can divert individuals experiencing mental health or substance abuse disorders out of the criminal justice system and into care.
That was a pitfall of the county鈥檚 last crisis center, the Diversion Center, which will officially close on Oct. 14 . It was initially envisioned to offer low-level offenders a choice of getting appropriate care to avoid reoffending or be taken to jail, , because police didn鈥檛 widely use it and patients had to call ahead and get permission to enter.
For now, Morse said they鈥檝e mostly been marketing the new crisis center to Cleveland police while they settle into the new space. They鈥檝e only opened 20 of the total 40 planned crisis chairs and had planned to ramp up capacity slowly over the next six to eight months.
But he believes word will spread fast and departments in the inner-ring suburbs will especially find it useful, knowing they can drop people off and return to the streets in minutes rather than waiting half an hour or more for them to be admitted to a hospital. If that happens, Morse said they may open more of the crisis chairs sooner than planned.
They set a goal of seeing 300 patients this month at the East 22nd Street facility. They saw nearly a quarter of that in the first week.
鈥淚t went really well,鈥� Morse said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e probably ahead.鈥�
Most of the patients were seen quickly 鈥� well within the promised 23-hour assessment window 鈥� and sent home with a care plan and referrals to additional services, he said. Many were also provided prescriptions, though he didn鈥檛 yet have the number of prescriptions filled at the on-site pharmacy.
After the assessment, he said some of the patients were transferred to in-patient services for mental health treatment and a couple went to other detox units in the community for substance abuse treatment, since the withdrawal-management wing is not yet set up at the Glick campus. He could not immediately provide exact numbers.
Morse said The Centers is still on track to open its own 12 withdrawal management beds in January. And then the campus is hoped to be a one-stop shop for behavioral health needs, offering immediate crisis care, substance abuse treatment, psychiatric stabilization, outpatient services, primary care, a pharmacy, counseling, peer support and case management under one roof.
The center is expected to serve roughly 12,000 people a year.
Funding, though, remains shaky. The Centers is counting on $12 million in Cuyahoga County鈥檚 opioid settlement dollars to be able to sustain the crisis center and expand services in January, but . Council is expected to discuss the funding again next week.
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