{"id":427435,"date":"2026-05-14T14:52:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T14:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/427435\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T14:52:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T14:52:19","slug":"county-psychiatric-hospital-reports-more-overall-visits-but-shorter-stays-local-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/427435\/","title":{"rendered":"County Psychiatric Hospital Reports More Overall Visits But Shorter Stays | Local News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Santa Barbara County<\/a> mental health facilities are on track to see a 30% increase in hospitalizations this year, but patient stays have shortened compared to previous years, county staff said on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

The Behavioral Wellness Department<\/a> gave the Board of Supervisors<\/a> a status update for the Psychiatric Health Facility (PHF) and other mental health facilities. The board unanimously voted to file the report.<\/p>\n

The local PHF is one of the state\u2019s two Super-PHFs, which means the facility is eligible for reimbursement of its expenses by Medicare<\/a> in addition to Medi-Cal.<\/a><\/p>\n

The county\u2019s facility has 16 inpatient beds and primarily works with people admitted under a 72-hour mental health hold. The 24\/7 facility offers access to programs like anger management, drug and alcohol counseling, and treatment planning.<\/p>\n

Department staff said in the first half of the department\u2019s 2025-26 fiscal year, staff have already documented 218 hospitalizations at its facilities. <\/p>\n

During the last fiscal year, the department saw 328 hospitalizations, and 304 the year before.<\/p>\n

Behavioral Wellness Director Toni Navarro acknowledged that the number of beds seems low, but stated the facility has improved its operations by better utilizing its staff and taking advantage of county and federal resources.<\/p>\n

Doing so has allowed the staff to better serve patients at the facility, per Navarro, who said that staff have also worked with outside partners to help patients being discharged or who need additional treatment before they are released.<\/p>\n

Navarro added that operations will improve as more beds become available in the next few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really look forward to the crisis residential units that will also be coming online in the next two years, as it will really help with the flow and the step down from our PHF,\u201d Navarro said.<\/p>\n

A Noozhawk investigation<\/a> found that the county\u2019s shortage of psychiatric acute care beds leads to long waits, emergency room holds<\/a>, and millions of dollars in spending to send local patients out of the area for care<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since then, the county has been able to expand care and reopen its crisis stabilization unit as a locked\/involuntary facility<\/a>, which can accept people on 5150 mental health crisis holds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since last year, the PHF has seen shorter stays among patients at the facility. Navarro said the length of stays has fallen by about 28% compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n

Even though a patient may be well enough to leave after a 72-hour hold, they may still need some level of care to address other issues, she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cMany folks resolve within that first three days,\u201d Navarro said. \u201cAnd the length of stay is really related to that discharge and that step down, making sure that we\u2019re discharging people to the right level of care at the right time and not just creating a scenario where it\u2019ll be a revolving door.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Navarro said the PHF intends to hire an additional psychiatric nurse senior, train employees to better understand new laws affecting patient care, and implement a new electronic patient transfer health record system.<\/p>\n

Navarro also shared that Department of Health Care Services<\/a> auditors did not find any issues during the facility\u2019s annual audit. She said it was the second year that the auditors said they did not find any major deficiencies at the facility.<\/p>\n

Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann<\/a> said the fact that state auditors found no issues two years in a row shows it is not an anomaly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do hear that people want to work at the PHF, that there\u2019s a camaraderie there,\u201d Hartmann said. \u201cAnd I think that that\u2019s extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santa Barbara County mental health facilities are on track to see a 30% increase in hospitalizations this year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134,256,554,555,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-427435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-local-news","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}