The Unity Center, a 24-hour behavioral services center in Portland, is beginning to operate normally after an Oregon Health Authority investigation.
The region’s first emergency room designed to deliver immediate psychiatric care had to divert patients to other facilities for about seven days as its staff implemented new patient care procedures that arose from an investigation into how the center failed to prevent assaults on employees by patients struggling with mental illness.
In March, the center was fined $1,650 when the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division discovered that Unity violated four safety rules and regulations, some of which were considered “serious.”
The state investigation found the center failed to properly log, document or investigate some of the roughly 300 assaults suffered by employees in the first seven months of operation from Jan. 31, 2017, to Sept. 2017.
With staffers focusing on putting new patient care safety procedures in place, the center had to wait for its staff-to-patient ratio to return to a proper capacity before returning to normal operations, said Brian Terrett, the director for public relations and community relations at Legacy Health.
“We wanted staff to be able to really concentrate on implementing these new patient care procedures,” Terrett said.
The Unity Center is near Interstate 5 and the Moda Center at the Rose Quarter in Portland, but Terrett said the center accepts patients from Clark County, most of whom are walk-in patients.
As of Monday afternoon, the Unity Center for Behavioral Health was caring for 64 total patients, with 19 in its psychiatric emergency services area.
“We are diligently working to address each deficiency outlined in the OHA’s corrective action plan,” the press release reads. “We have made significant progress to ensure our patients are safe and being cared for in an environment dedicated to patient and staff safety and wellbeing.”
