A year ago, a group of PHC mental health staff toured Salem Hospital in Oregon.
“Salem had done a really good job of reducing their episodes of violence and changing the practice on the ward to a really trauma-informed practice approach,” explains Julie Campbell, former-clinical nurse leader on 9A. “While a lot of the stuff Salem did was beyond our budget ability, there was a lot of low-hanging fruit; initiatives and ideas that were easy to replicate, and either cost-effective or free.”
In short: Julie came back from Oregon inspired. And it didn’t take much to get clinical nurse specialist Michelle Carter in on the excitement. “We started asking ourselves, ‘In a perfect world—sky’s the limit, no cost implications—what would we do? How could we bring some of Salem’s successes to PHC and make them fit on 9A?’”
9A is an adult acute mental health unit at St. Paul’s, where there are 17 beds that are always 100% in use. Built in 2006 with funding from global pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly, it’s the only unit within Providence’s Mental Health program that was purposefully built for mental health patients. Read More…