UM Upper Chesapeake submits plans for psychiatric hospital

University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health has submitted plans to the Maryland Health Care Commission for a 40-bed psychiatric hospital as part of its planned Aberdeen medical campus.

The $54 million project will include 28 licensed beds from Harford Memorial Hospital.

The hospital’s 40 beds will be split into two “neighborhoods.” One 15-bed section will focus specifically on geriatric psychiatry for seniors. The other section will handle all other adults.

Hospital plans call for a 72,444-square-foot facility located on the second and third floors of a medical building that will also include the Aberdeen medical campus’s freestanding medical facility. That facility will include an emergency room and observation beds to replace emergency services at Harford Memorial Hospital, which will close when the new campus opens.

The psychiatric hospital will also include outpatient services, including outpatient psychotherapy, medication management, an intensive outpatient program and a partial hospitalization program. Most of these services have already been developed at Harford Memorial Hospital and will be a part of the new hospital, Upper Chesapeake Behavioral Health, when it opens.

The geriatric section of the hospital will focus on treating patients suffering from neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s and dementia. Its 15 beds will feature a central room that includes therapy, staff and support spaces.

Both the geriatric neighborhood and the main adult neighborhood will have access to a courtyard. This will allow patients to have secure access to the outside and will bring natural light into the main rooms of each neighborhood.

The hospital will have separate spaces for outpatient programming on the medical campus.

Upper Chesapeake Health expects that total construction of the project will take 52 months from when a certificate of need is granted by the Maryland Health Care Commission.

The hospital project is part of the health system’s broader push to improve psychiatric health care in Cecil and Harford Counties.

Last month, health system officials previewed the Harford Crisis Center, a public-private partnership that includes Harford County. The center will serve as an alternative to the emergency room for mental health patients while also offering outpatient services and addiction services.

The center is expected to open next spring. A 24/7 mental health hotline has already been launched with Harford’s Mobile Crisis Team.

The crisis center and the new psychiatric hospital will allow the health system to vary its response to mental health patients depending on their level of need, it wrote in its certificate of need application.

“The proposed project is central to UM UCH’s efforts and continued success in coordinating and facilitating access to behavioral health services at the appropriate acuity level,” Upper Chesapeake Health wrote.