PRMC tackling teen behavioral health through new unit

For decades, Peninsula Regional Medical Center (“PRMC”) has offered in-patient behavioral health treatment for adults.

Thanks to a new partnership and donations, the hospital now has out-patient treatment options for kids and teenagers which has been dedicated as the Rebecca and Leighton Moore Child and Adolescent Outpatient Behavioral Health Unit.

Officials say it’s been operating for about a month and half but Thursday was an official debut with the media. It appears many of the issues they are tackling mirror common disorders among teens in the U.S.

Dr. Steve Dixon, executive director of Behavioral Health at PRMC, says the unit has about 100 patients to date. Some of the more common issues they treat are hyperactivity, depression and anxiety.

The unit is through a joint partnership between PRMC and Adventist HealthCare.

Kevin Young, president of Behavioral Health and Wellness Services at Adventist HealthCare, says the new adolescent out-patient center has the ability to treat patients outside of hospital walls.

“There’s transitional things that occur within an adolescent or a child when they’re at school and when they go home and so being able to collaborate both those areas is really the best for the child,” Young says. “So partnering with pediatricians as well, that’s what different about this.”

Leighton Moore, chair of the Peninsula Regional Medical Center Foundation, says the new unit costs about 432,000 dollars.

According to the most recent numbers from the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 2.8 million adolescents in the U.S, between the ages of 12 and 17 had at least one major depressive episode in the past year.

“There’s so many people, even in families or even in the families that you know that have a mental issue with one or two or more people,” Says Moore.

Dr. Dixon says research has found a combination of medication and therapy have yielded the most success; however, he also notes doctors still have to consider patient case by case.

“I think being a child and adolescent, it’s very difficult these days and I think there are new challenges for these kids that maybe when I was a kid didn’t exist,” Explains Dr. Dixon.

While this unit right now is simply for out-patient services, Moore says he’d like to look into a future wing or separate center all together where they would have in-patient services for adolescents.

For more information on the unit, please call 410-543-7119.