- A new behavioral health center at Intermountain Alta View Hospital will take adult walk-in patients.
- The maternal mental health unit addresses mental health issues related to pregnancy, including postpartum depression.
- Utah NAMI estimated 1 in 5 Utahns has some type of mental health challenge at some point.
Intermountain Health is opening a 56-bed behavioral health center at its Alta View Hospital in Sandy — a move the health system’s officials laud as significantly bolstering mental healthcare for Salt Lake County residents.
The center will begin serving patients in June, but community leaders, health officials, media and patients got a preview of the facility Thursday. The 84,000 square-foot facility will feature walk-in crisis treatment and in-patient treatment for adults. Walk-in care for pediatric mental health crises is available at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital on the Taylorsville campus.
Hospital president Scott Robertson said that, according to state data, “roughly 30% of Utahns live with a mental health illness. ”That’s more than 1 in 4."
“We all probably know somebody who struggled in one way or another in their life. What an opportunity we have to take care of our friends and neighbors here at Alta View.”
NAMI Utah data suggests 1 in 5 Utah adults have had a mental health crisis. And in 2023, the 988 crisis line took nearly 35,000 calls.
The center also has beds for people who need medical substance detox. But one of its most unique features is a small unit that will provide care for women who are having a mental health crisis during pregnancy or within a year after a pregnancy.
Maternal mental healthcare
The maternal mental health unit is a six-bed inpatient program that was created with mother-baby bonding in mind. While babies won’t stay overnight in the unit, they are welcome to visit and bond with their mother as she receives care, according to Janet Hintze, the chief nursing officer for Intermountain Alta View Hospital. She said the unit will meet mothers “where they are, during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.”
While maternal mental healthcare is available in other programs, the new unit has features unique in Utah and is one of very few across the nation, Hintze said.
The maternal mental health unit is separate from the other inpatient behavioral health center units and will directly address the “emotional, psychological and physiological needs associated with pregnancy and early parenthood,” hospital officials said.
Among the psychological challenges that may occur during and immediately following pregnancy are postpartum depression, anxiety, postpartum psychosis, trauma-related disorders and conditions related to substance use.
During the program, hospital officials said that any of those can not only hurt mom’s health, but can impact bonding with the baby and family stability in general.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services has reported that depression and anxiety are the most common childbirth complications. It’s estimated that in Utah, 1 in 8 have postpartum depression and 1 in 3 have anxiety, depression or postpartum depression.
Walking through the unit on a tour, visitors passed a sign that read: “Maternal mental health is essential healthcare.”
In times of crisis
Robertson said the project took almost five years from conception to being ready to open and represents a “dream come true” to dozens of people who were involved, including those not only on the medical services side, but also contractors, designers, workers in several departments for Sandy City and others.
He noted that people in mental health crisis have often been seen in emergency departments, and they may end up waiting hours or even days to get an inpatient bed. Now adults in crisis can enter the behavioral health center directly and expect to receive targeted help for their crisis.
As Ralph Jean-Mary, president of both Intermountain Salt Lake Central Market and of the Intermountain Medical Center, said, the center is entirely dedicated to helping community members with mental health, which he called “a big deal.”
Dr. Ben Holt, senior medical director for behavioral health at Intermountain for both Utah and Nevada, said the need for behavioral healthcare is not abstract. It doesn’t happen somewhere to someone else in some other family. It touches everyone.
He said his patients have taught him that “we’re all about two bad days away from needing help with our mental health. Most people who end up in crisis didn’t expect it. It wasn’t scheduled as an upcoming event on their calendar, But when a crisis happened, what they needed most is a safe place. They don’t need shame or judgment. They need safety, expertise, compassion and community.”
Those, Holt said, are what the center will provide.
The final speaker, Liz Owens, CEO of YWCA Utah, said families are stretched thin and anxiety, loneliness, domestic violence, trauma, instability, grief, fear and homelessness all weigh people down.
“What we know deeply is this: Mental health is not separate from the rest of our lives. There are times we are healthier than others, but we all experience moments of struggle, healing, recovery and hopefully wellness. When support systems don’t exist to help people on their journey back to health, the consequences ripple outward across families and communities.”
The center, Jean-Mary said, nearly doubles the number of behavioral health beds in Salt Lake County. He noted that Intermountain has two behavioral health access centers in the valley: the new facility and one at LDS Hospital.
Guests for the open house were each given a small “behavioral health dictionary” to introduce what Hintze called “some of the language that we want to incorporate when we talk about behavioral health services.” It is a respectful, “patient-forward” way to talk about addiction and suicide, for example, she said.
The new behavioral health center, which has the theme “Together We Thrive,” is located at 9660 S. 1300 East in Sandy.
