Milwaukee Mental Health Emergency Center to open in September, rather than May

Milwaukee’s Mental Health Emergency Center is projected to open Sept. 6 due to staff recruitment challenges, rather than this spring.

The center, a joint venture between the Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division, Advocate Aurora Health, Ascension Wisconsin, Children’s Wisconsin and Froedtert Health, is a part of the county’s efforts to redesign its mental healthcare system. It will take on emergency services now offered at the Mental Health Complex.

“Local and national workforce constraints have impacted the timely recruitment and onboarding of physicians and staff, as these challenges have affected healthcare organizations and industries across the board,” center Administrator Kevin Kluesner said in a Monday statement. “Because of the highly specialized skill set required, behavioral health workforce shortages are even more acute than in other healthcare disciplines.”

Until the center is fully operational, Milwaukee County will continue to provide emergency mental healthcare, Kluesner said.

The center was slated to open May 1, Behavioral Health Division Administrator Mike Lappen told Milwaukee County Mental Health Board members at a meeting last week.

Lappen said Advocate Aurora, which is serving as the manager of the center and will employ its doctors and staff, told him the new projected starting date is based on “their inability to recruit, mostly physicians.”

“But just in general, the recruitment environment is extremely challenging right now,” Lappen said. “So they have not been able to recruit enough providers.”

He said it takes about three months to credential physicians as new staff.

“My biggest concern is the continued operation of our facility through September,” he said. “It’s going to be a challenge as far as just costs and staffing and whatnot. But, of course, my team is up to the challenge. We will do what it takes.”

Dr. Jon Lehrmann, chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, said he feels “strongly” that the best chances for the effort to work out is if the psychiatrists staffing current psychiatric crisis services continue at the center.

“I worry about Advocate Aurora being able to staff this if they don’t get most of the current group, including the medical director, to move over,” he said at the board meeting last week. “I know they’re working on the negotiation. I know that there’s some challenges there, I’m aware of that.”

There are a “lot of complex issues” that come up when moving employees into a new organization, he said.

Lehrmann said the easiest way would have been to keep the current group of psychiatrists employed by the Behavioral Health Division, which would have been the least amount of change for the workers.

But he said “that just wasn’t an option,” given efforts to get the county out of running a hospital.

Lehrmann served on the steering committee for developing the center.

“It’s almost impossible – I can’t find psychiatrists to work in the middle of the night,” he said. “The success of this … really almost hinges on the group moving over.”

The Milwaukee Mental Health Task Force said in a statement that they’re ready to help in any way with the transition in care.

“The mental health work force recruitment challenges in our community are undeniably significant,” they said. “However, with the growing and urgent need for mental health and crisis care in our community, now more than ever, we need Advocate Aurora Health to expedite the opening of the new Emergency Mental Health Center, for the benefit of every person in Milwaukee County who needs help and is counting on the new center to connect them to care and to hope.”

A spokeswoman for Advocate Aurora referred comment to the Mental Health Emergency Center.

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