Ochsner Behavioral Health Acadiana welcomed its first patients July 8, marking the official launch of a regional behavioral health network built jointly by Ochsner Lafayette (La.) General and Plano, Texas-based Oceans Healthcare.
The network pairs a newly built hospital in Lafayette with the former Oceans Behavioral Hospital Broussard, now renamed Ochsner Behavioral Health Acadiana-Broussard, giving the partners 100 inpatient beds across the two campuses under a single license — more than double the 38 beds they previously operated in the region.
The logic behind the partnership, Oceans Healthcare COO Jeff Pritchard said, comes down to completing the continuum.
“Many patients come through the doors of a health system; they have ERs, they have hospitals, they have various clinics,” he said. “By forging a connection with them, we can create a path to those patients who need behavioral health support, so there’s no loss of care in the transition.”
Beyond the continuum, the network’s addition of adolescent and younger adult services addresses a need gap not previously filled in the region. The new venture will offer inpatient and outpatient behavioral healthcare for adolescents, adults and older adults.
“Expanding access to adolescents became a clear need as we built our partnership,” Mr. Pritchard said. “It was kind of a no-brainer to add those services into this operation.” He said both organizations independently identified the need before the joint venture made adding it feasible.
Leadership has described the new Lafayette campus as intentionally designed to counter the institutional feel typically associated with inpatient psychiatric facilities, with an environment of care meant to feel safe and dignified rather than clinical.
Recruiting the staff to support a roughly 60-bed increase in capacity has not been the challenge some might expect, Mr. Pritchard said.
“Ochsner’s a great name in Louisiana and in the Acadiana region; that helps us. Oceans is a great name in that region,” he said. “When behavioral health professionals heard through the media we were working together, our partnership quickly became someplace that people said, ‘Yes, I want to work there.'”
Combining a health system’s operating processes with a standalone behavioral health operator’s surfaced differences worth flagging for other systems considering similar deals, Mr. Pritchard said — particularly around procurement and hiring, where Ochsner and Oceans each brought their own established steps.
“Listen as much as you talk. Take the good feedback. Understand that things are different for different people in different systems, and then apply that mindset to create the best care delivery system you can,” he said. He added that the two organizations’ shared cultural roots in behavioral health made the integration easier than it might be for an out-of-region partner.
Mr. Pritchard framed the launch as more than a facilities story: a joint commitment from both organizations to support access to behavioral healthcare across the continuum, from inpatient care down through partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient programs, and across age groups from adolescents through geriatric patients.
“If you have a behavioral health need in the Acadiana region, this should be your first stop,” Mr. Pritchard said.
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