Mount Sinai’s Partial Hospital Program provides intensive, highly structured outpatient behavioral health services to stabilize patients suffering from acute mental health symptoms.
Mount Sinai’s Partial Hospital Program provides an intensive level of psychiatric care for patients with acute symptoms—without hospitalization. The program treats patients with a range of psychiatric conditions, and places them on specialized tracks based on symptom presentation and level of self-harm. Most of the patients who are admitted do so as a step down after being discharged from inpatient care. But the program can also be used as a step up for patients who have been getting regular care but are on a downward trend, as a way to avoid full hospitalization. “It’s great for patients to have this program as an option to reduce the length of their stay in the hospital,” said Joan Bell, MSW, Clinical Director of Ambulatory Behavioral Health Services for The Mount Sinai Hospital. “It’s so hard for people to stay on an inpatient unit, and this offers them an alternative.”
The program was launched in 2016 to fill a service gap of patients needing care after being discharged from inpatient treatment. The staff consists of one full-time psychiatrist, one full-time nurse practitioner, and seven master’s-level therapists, and they can support a total of 20 patients at a given time. Ivan Chavarria-Siles, MD, PhD, is the Medical Director, and Jessica Rothenberg, MSW, is the Clinical Director. Patients come for treatment 10:30 am-4 pm, five days per week, for a maximum of six weeks. The Sheehan Disability Scale, which is a questionnaire completed on intake and discharge that measures how patients’ disabilities affect their lives and functioning, indicates that patients leave the program feeling more equipped to engage in their work, social, and family lives.
“This is an outstanding, well-organized program designed to maximize participants’ understanding of both cognitive behavioral therapy and behavioral principles,” said a former patient. “The group size ensures participation and feedback, and individual group members are provided a comfortable space to confide personal issues and receive group support. The group leaders are both empathetic and goal-oriented, and the material covered provides a rich array of strategies to foster mental health.”
The program focuses on group therapy (five groups per day), supplemented by individual therapy and, if needed, medication management. Patients sometimes leave before the end of six weeks, depending on their progress, stepping down to the intensive outpatient program, which is three hours per day for three days each week, and then down to regular clinical therapy services. The decision about the next step is a collaborative one, with the patient and treatment team deciding together.
The program has helped a wide variety of patients, many of them working professionals. “We see lawyers, doctors, and architects, and most of them are on leave of absence because they’re coming directly from hospital inpatient stays,” said Ms. Bell. “And then they’re able to leave the program and return to work. So it’s a really helpful and hopeful program.”