To help with ‘urgent’ need, officials break ground on Council Bluffs behavioral health hospital

Officials with Jennie Edmundson Hospital and Acadia Healthcare stressed the need during a groundbreaking ceremony for the state-of-the-art facility, just south of Interstate 80 on South 24th Street.

Dave Burd, Jennie Edmundson’s president and CEO, said American Hospital Directory data indicates a shortfall of more than 300 inpatient behavioral health beds in Iowa and Nebraska.

That statistic, as well as numerous letters of support, won the project approval last fall from the Iowa committee tasked with certifying the need for new health care facilities.

“This project reinforces that the need for behavioral health care is urgent, and it’s not just urgent nationally,” he said. “It’s urgent right here in western Iowa and eastern Nebraska.”

Burd said Jennie Edmundson has had a long-standing commitment to providing behavioral health care in the community. Its existing behavioral health unit is licensed for 29 beds, with 24 of them staffed.

“However, we’ve reached a point where physical expansion is needed, and the demand for care exceeds our current capacity,” he said. “And this project represents the next step of our journey.”

The hospital’s existing licensed beds will move into the new facility, which will be divided into four 24-bed patient care units: one dedicated to the care of children and adolescents, another for seniors, a third for patients with illnesses such as psychosis and schizophrenia and a fourth for people suffering from conditions such as depression, anxiety and trauma-related issues, who may also have substance use issues.

The hospital also will provide outpatient services, some of which currently aren’t available in Council Bluffs.

The hospital will be named Methodist Jennie Edmundson Behavioral Health. Jennie Edmundson is an affiliate of Omaha-based Methodist Health System. Acadia Healthcare, its partner in the joint venture, is the largest stand-alone behavioral health care company in the United States. As of June, the company operated a network of 258 behavioral health care facilities with approximately 11,400 beds in 38 states and Puerto Rico.

Also attending the event were Council Bluffs Mayor Matt Walsh, other Methodist leaders and executives from Tennessee-based Acadia. Together, the partners are investing more than $55 million in expanding behavioral health resources in the region.

Dr. S. Pirzada Sattar, medical director of Jennie Edmundson’s behavioral health unit, said he could speak first hand to the need for more beds and enhanced services in the area. Twelve people were waiting for beds in the unit Tuesday morning.

While the pandemic helped reduce the stigma around mental health, he said, providers seeing the increase in the number of people seeking help also recognized how limited their resources were, including inpatient beds.

“All of these have a significant effect on the individual and their loved ones and also create an economic and social burden for the entire community,” he said.

Jeffrey Woods, Acadia’s group president, said outpatient services will include both partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient programs. Both are intended as an alternative to inpatient treatment for patients who don’t need hospital-level care or for those who are leaving the hospital having completed their inpatient treatment but who still need supportive therapy for a few more weeks.

Patients participating in a partial hospitalization program, the more intensive of the two, typically meet five days a week for six hours a day before stepping down to the intensive outpatient program. In that program, patients typically gather three days a week for about three hours for group and individual therapy to make sure they’re stable and functioning well at work and home, he said. Typically, patients in that program eventually return to their outpatient provider in the community.

Sattar said Council Bluffs currently lacks some of those services.

Patients who need partial hospitalization typically have to travel to Immanuel Hospital in Omaha, which typically has a waiting period of three to four weeks, he said. Council Bluffs has intensive outpatient programs for patients with substance use issues, but waits also are significant. However, patients have to travel to facilities such as Community Alliance in Omaha for the mental health version of intensive outpatient care.

The new hospital, in fact, comes as two other significant expansions in behavioral health care are underway in the metro area. Community Alliance opened its new Center for Mental Health near 71st Street and Mercy Road in Omaha in June with the goal of tripling the number of people it serves each year.

Also slated to open in 2026 is the Behavioral Health & Wellness Center at Children’s Nebraska, which will offer a continuum of mental and physical health care for children and teens, including 40 inpatient hospital beds and the region’s first behavioral health emergency assessment center.

Pat Connell, a former vice president of behavioral health for Boys Town who attended Tuesday’s event, said the need for more mental health services finally is getting the recognition it needs.

“There’s just been a lack of places to go and timely access,” said Connell, who is retired but serves as chairman of the Nebraska Child Health and Education Alliance.

He noted that Isa Diaz, Acadia’s senior vice president of strategic affairs, has been active in advocating for such services nationally.

“They’ll be a great partner for Methodist,” he said of the company.

The 71,000-square-foot Council Bluffs hospital, set on approximately 23 acres, will be nearly identical to a year-old facility the company built as part of a joint venture with another health system in Michigan.

Woods said the building is designed to “respect the dignity” of patients, family members and staff, with large treatment rooms for group therapy sessions and high ceilings and large windows to capitalize on natural light, as well as activity spaces and gymnasiums. Each of the four inpatient units will have its own safe outdoor space.

The hospital will have about 200 employees when it is fully up and running. Employees in Jennie Edmundson’s existing behavioral health unit will have the option to move there. While Acadia will manage day-to-day operations, the hospital will be overseen by a board of directors comprised equally of members from Methodist and Acadia.

“This is really all about … improving access to care, ensuring individuals who are struggling, who are suffering, whose families are struggling and suffering, that they have the ability to gain access to timely care,” Woods said.