Categories: New York State
07.11.2013
New Regional Centers of Excellence to soon offer care
The NYS Office of Mental Health (OMH) released its Regional Centers of Excellence Plan on July 10. The plan, available here, will consolidate New York's 24 State-run psychiatric hospitals and establish 15 Regional Centers of Excellence (RCE) across New York over the next three years.
RCEs will serve as networks for inpatient and community-based services. Each RCE will have a specialized inpatient hospital program located at its center along with geographically dispersed community service "hubs" to oversee state-operated, community-based services throughout the region.
State-run psychiatric facilities will close in a number of regions: St. Lawrence, Binghamton, Elmira, Rochester, Mid Hudson, Sagamore, Manhattan and Western NY Children's PCs. St. Lawrence, Binghamton, Elmira and Rochester will continue to provide outpatient services in the community as they do now.
For a list of all 15 RCEs that OMH will operate after the three-year transition process, see page five of this document.
Each RCE will have a specialized inpatient hospital program with a network of state-operated, community-based services operating throughout their region. A community service hub will be located in distinct areas of the region. OMH will operate an expanded and intensive array of community-based treatment, support and care monitoring based on local needs.
OMH will ensure continuity of employment for staff of facilities by:
- Transforming inpatient positions into local, community-based positions.
- Transferring continuing inpatient positions to the RCE where inpatient services will be located.
- Prioritizing voluntary transfer of current employees to vacant positions with the OMH system.
- Offering transfer to other State agencies.
- Retraining impacted OMH employees for alternative State employment.
The Network signed onto the following joint statement in response to the plan, through the leadership of the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services (NYAPRS) and our other advocacy partners -- New York State Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare, Mental Health Association of New York State, Coalition of Behavioral Health Agencies, Association for Community Living and the Mental Health Empowerment Project:
"Our organizations welcome these proposals to reconfigure state dollars and staff in a way that maximizes state resources to meet our communities' most pressing needs, while at the same time creating state of the art regional psychiatric facilities that are among the nation's best. This is an historic moment for New York. Thanks to Governor Cuomo's strong and creative leadership, New York will be able to make smart investments that bolster local community mental health systems, increase employment and housing, reduce local and state spending on acute care services and provide an enhanced quality of life for New Yorkers with psychiatric disabilities. We will be scrutinizing the details of these proposals and sharing more detailed reactions and recommendations in the days to come, and during the three year process the state is providing to finalize these landmark reforms. We want to ensure that a significant portion of state savings from staff attrition and facility closures is reinvested into local communities to boost effective and cost effective nonprofit services."
The Network is paying particular attention to the State's plan to maximize reinvestments into community-based housing options. We will let our members know about new pertinent information as it becomes available.