Local and state officials join Jefferson Cherry Hill Hospital administrators as they accept a check for the construction of the new unit.
The township has taken a step toward making behavioral and mental health-care more accessible with a new unit at Jefferson Cherry Hill Hospital.
The addition of the Emergency Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment and Healing (EmPATH) unit will help address the influx of mental-health patients in the emergency department and offer a new way to guide theose patients through a crisis.
In order to implement EmPATH, the hospital will create a 4,000-square-foot facility adjacent to the existing emergency department, with private mental- and behavioral-health bays and living room-style waiting areas to create a calming atmosphere.
The new unit will be financed by a $4-million grant from the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services.
To celebrate the addition, Jefferson Cherry Hill hosted a recent check presentation with state and local officials who played a role in bringing the unit to fruition. Aaron Chang, president of Jefferson Health-East, was there to explain the need for EmPATH, including the fact that Camden County has seen a 400% increase in behavioral-health patients in the last decade.
“They’ll receive treatment, support and, most importantly, dignity in their most vulnerable moments,” he explained, “and they will leave not only stabilized, but with a plan for what comes next.”
Chang added that area residents report some of the highest levels of mental-health distress in the state, with 22% saying they frequently experience days when their mental health is questionable.
Jefferson’s CEO, Dr. Joseph Cacchione, emphasized the strain emergency departments and health-care providers have been under as the demand for mental-health care continues to rise in the wake of COVID.
“What we’re launching here today is not simply a new program,” he noted. “It’s really a new approach, and this EmPATH model … allows us to rethink how we deliver mental-health care. It represents a shift from reactive care to more proactive and specialized intervention.”
Cacchione also expressed gratitude to the government, public, private and nonprofit organizations and partnerships that helped create the EmPATH model and the new Jefferson facility.
Assemblywoman Melinda Kane was on hand for the check presentation and expressed her appreciation for the new unit.
“As a longtime resident of Cherry Hill,” she said, “I’m so proud to be here today … For residents of Cherry Hill, we know how much it has grown … To be here today for the opening of this department, this unit, it’s wonderful, because we know that you can come to this facility and be treated for everything that you need.”
Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald talked about how the more patient-centered approach of EmPATH not only results in better outcomes, but also less cost and strain on the overall system.
“The reality is that this program takes that patient and puts them in a better setting that has a better patient experience,” he observed, “with a better patient outcome … ”
The new unit is expected to be completed in 2027.
