Baptist Hospital and Lakeview Center will operate centralized Baker Act facilities

Baptist Hospital and the Lakeview Center are planning to create a central receiving facility for Baker Act patients that will include 30 new inpatient beds for mental health care.

Baptist Hospital and Lakeview Center officials made the announcement Friday at the meeting of the Northwest Florida Mental Health Taskforce, where the draft plan of the task force's strategic planning study was unveiled.

The new strategic plan recommends a road map for improving mental health care in the area by having organizations work together to create more public awareness about available services, expanding services, creating peer-led support centers, improving the training and recruitment of behavioral healthcare workers, increasing affordable housing availability that also has access to mental health care services and expanding the diversion court program to create a mental health treatment court.

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Rep. Michelle Salzman formed the task force in 2021 as an informal organization where senior leaders in organizations that deal with mental health could come together to discuss how to address mental health treatment issues facing Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.

Salzman steps back

Salzman had organized the group, but she announced Friday she was stepping back from managing the organization to put it in the hands of the Northwest Florida Health Network, the state-designated management agency for child protection, substance abuse and mental health services.

Salzman told the News Journal she would still be involved with the task force, but her office could no longer handle the logistics of running the task force.

"Now, Northwest Florida Health is going to have a staff member, and we're going to be able to go, OK, that's this person that's going to help us collaborate these efforts," Salzman said.

Salzman said the task force is crucial to getting all of the decision-makers who can affect real change in the mental healthcare landscape to talk and work together.

Northwest Florida Heath CEO Mike Watkins said the task force could help shape the way state and federal dollars are spent on mental health care in the region.

"This task force, in my humble opinion, is really just zooming in on the issue," Watkins said. "We're zooming in on Escambia and Santa Rosa. So let's make the roadmap the way that we want it, so that it works for our community."

Baker Act receiving facility

How Pensacola deals with Baker Act patients became a central focus of the task force last year when HCA Florida West Hospital raised red flags and threatened to no longer accept Baker Act patients after children placed under the Baker Act were stuck waiting for hours to be screened at the hospital.

The Baker Act allows law enforcement officials, a court or doctors to involuntarily commit someone for a minimum of 72 hours for a mental health evaluation if they are a danger to themselves or others.

The dispute led to an agreement to push for a centralized receiving facility for all Baker Act patients.

Escambia County's local delegation worked to get funding for the initiative in the latest state budget.

Jennifer Grove, vice president for external relations at Baptist Healthcare, told the task force Friday that Baptist Hospital would become the central receiving facility for all children who are placed under the Baker Act while Lakeview Center would take all adult patients.

Most other Florida communities have set up one central facility, but Pensacola will move forward with the split between children and adults.

Grove said Baptist Hospital already has licensed behavioral health beds for children, so taking children to Baptist first avoids unnecessary delays in the child waiting to be screened then transported to Baptist anyway if they need to be admitted.

LifeView Group and Lakeview Center CEO Allison Hill said the system would "minimize trauma" on children going through a Baker Act.

Salzman said the funding for the new centers is in the budget, and she worked with Sen. Doug Broxson to get the funding for Pensacola and all Baker Act receiving facilities moved to the recurring portion of the budget. Under previous budgets, all central receiving facilities were a line item in the budget sponsored by a legislator, opening them up to a potential line-item veto by the governor.

"My argument as vice chair of healthcare appropriations was we are saying that we have central receiving facilities, we have we have brick and mortar with people there," Salzman said. "We can't have a member project dangling every year hoping that we get that money to operate."

Salzman said the change will go through as long as Gov. Ron DeSantis doesn't use his line-item veto on it this year.

"I foresee zero issues," Salzman said. "It would shock me, and I'm not shocked that easily. It would shock me if it didn't go through."

Mental Health Courts

The task force also heard the result of a planning study from Ernst and Young that called for several improvements to the mental health care services offered in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.

One notable recommendation was expanding court diversion to create mental healthcare treatment courts. The program would allow people charged with non-violent offenses to seek behavioral health treatment instead of face jail time.

The program would involve judges, public defenders, state attorneys, law enforcement and mental healthcare providers to work together to create the program.

Salzman said getting different groups and organizations in the room and talking about solutions is what the task force is supposed to do.

"I fully support (the mental health treatment courts)," Salzman said. "I want to expand on that. What does that look like? Unfortunately, I don't know. It's kind of like the rest of this where I said (to the task force) you do it and tell me what you need."

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Baptist Hospital and Lakeview Center centralize Baker Act facilities