Mercy Health and Lifepoint Behavioral Health Announce Agreement to Build New Inpatient Behavioral Health Hospital

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio & BRENTWOOD, Tenn.--()--Mercy Health – Youngstown and Lifepoint Behavioral Health, a business unit of Lifepoint Health, today announced that they have entered into a joint venture partnership to build and operate a new inpatient behavioral health hospital in the Mahoning Valley.

The Mercy Health Behavioral Hospital will be a 75,000 square-foot 72-bed hospital, providing inpatient services for adults struggling with depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, substance use disorder and other mental health illnesses. This new facility will be structurally designed to create a therapeutic environment for patients, featuring open, airy spaces with amenities that include spacious patient rooms, community areas, outside courtyards, and state-of-the-art clinical spaces to support the needs of patients and families. Lifepoint Behavioral Health will manage the day-to-day operations of the inpatient behavioral health hospital.

“We are excited to grow our partnership with Lifepoint Health through its behavioral health division as we again expand access to high-quality acute specialty care for our patients throughout the Mahoning Valley,” said John Luellen, MD, market president of Mercy Health – Lorain and Youngstown. “This hospital will broaden Mercy Health’s ability to provide much-needed inpatient behavioral health care and help us further our mission of bringing good help to those in need.”

Mercy Health and Lifepoint Rehabilitation, another business unit of Lifepoint Health, announced a separate joint venture partnership in May 2022 to construct Mercy Health Rehabilitation Hospital, a standalone, 60-bed acute inpatient rehabilitation hospital. This hospital will treat patients who suffer from stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, complex neurological disorders, orthopedic conditions, multiple trauma, amputation and other injuries or disorders that have impacted a patient’s functional or cognitive skills.

Both hospitals will be located in the Mahoning Valley. Construction for Mercy Health Rehabilitation Hospital is expected to begin in the spring of 2023 with an expected opening in the summer of 2024. Construction for Mercy Health Behavioral Hospital is expected to begin in the summer of 2023 with an expected opening in late 2024.

“We are pleased to expand our partnership with Mercy Health, a leading healthcare system, as we look ahead to this behavioral health facility in the Mahoning Valley,” said Russ Bailey, president of Lifepoint Behavioral Health and Lifepoint Rehabilitation. “We know that in opening and operating this behavioral health hospital with Mercy Health we have a partner equally committed to our mission of making communities healthier as we ensure that Youngstown-area residents have better access to high-quality, behavioral health care.”

Upon completion, Mercy Health Behavioral Hospital will be Lifepoint Behavioral Health’s sixth joint-venture, standalone behavioral health hospital nationally and first in the state of Ohio.

About Mercy Health - Youngstown

Mercy Health - Youngstown is part of Bon Secours Mercy Health one of the 20 largest health systems in the United States and the fifth-largest Catholic health system in the country. The ministry’s quality, compassionate care is provided by more than 60,000 associates serving communities in Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia, as well as throughout Ireland. Mercy Health – Youngstown is an integrated health system in the Mahoning Valley, which encompasses the Youngstown/Warren metropolitan area – Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties in Ohio. Mercy Health - Youngstown provides a full spectrum of health care services – acute inpatient and trauma, outpatient and ambulatory, rehabilitation, behavioral, emergency and urgent care, primary care, specialist physician care, home health, home medical equipment and hospice care, as well as Mercy Health Foundation Mahoning Valley. The mission of Mercy Health – Youngstown is to extend the compassionate ministry of Jesus by improving the health and well-being of our communities and bring good help to those in need, especially people who are poor, dying and underserved. Learn more at www.mercy.com.

About Lifepoint Behavioral Health

Lifepoint Behavioral Health partners with hospitals to expand access to quality behavioral health services in communities nationwide through contract management and joint venture partnerships. Lifepoint Behavioral specializes in compassionate care across the behavioral healthcare continuum, including acute inpatient treatment, partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient programs. Lifepoint Behavioral offers programs designed to address the unique needs of various patient populations, including adolescents, adults and geriatrics. Lifepoint Behavioral has diversified its programming, allowing more specific therapy models of treatment while encompassing the whole person. Sub-units may include crisis/triage, ante/post-partum, forensics, transitional age youth, psychiatric intensive care, and medically compromised. Lifepoint Behavioral treatment models provide evidence-based therapies with distinct short- and long-term goals of improving and sustaining mental health. Lifepoint Behavioral is a business unit of Brentwood, Tennessee-based Lifepoint Health.

About Lifepoint Health

Lifepoint Health is a leading healthcare provider that serves patients, clinicians, communities and partner organizations across the healthcare continuum. Driven by a mission of making communities healthier®, the company has a growing diversified healthcare delivery network comprised of more than 50,000 dedicated employees, 62 community hospital campuses, more than 30 rehabilitation and behavioral health hospitals and 170 additional sites of care, including managed acute rehabilitation units, outpatient centers and post-acute care facilities. Through its innovation strategy, Lifepoint Forward, the company is developing meaningful solutions to enhance quality, increase access to care, and improve value across the Lifepoint footprint and communities across the country. For more information about the company, visit www.LifepointHealth.net.

Contacts

Kara Carter Franz
Mercy Health – Youngstown
(336) 508-4648, kecarter@mercy.com

Aileen Bennett
Lifepoint Health
(615) 920-7668, aileen.bennett@lpnt.net

Release Summary

Mercy Health – Youngstown and Lifepoint Behavioral Health have partnered to build a new inpatient behavioral health hospital in the Mahoning Valley.

Contacts

Kara Carter Franz
Mercy Health – Youngstown
(336) 508-4648, kecarter@mercy.com

Aileen Bennett
Lifepoint Health
(615) 920-7668, aileen.bennett@lpnt.net