First of its kind medical center will open in downtown Macon. Why it’s different

The only medical facility in the United States to offer overnight and immediate comprehensive care for people with disabilities, in or not in crisis, will soon open right behind the Bibb County Jail.

The building at 750 Hazel St. in downtown Macon is split in two for inpatient care under The River Edge Crisis Services and Diagnostic Center, and outpatient care under the Mercer University School of Medicine Center for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Care.

Its treatments are uniquely modern and humane, compared to some traditional approaches to care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, which are often still seen in psychiatric and jail facilities today, said Greta O’Dell, chief intellectual and developmental disabilities officer of River Edge Behavior Health – the leading health and recovery organization in Middle Georgia.

“We will stabilize the individual … and we’ll work with providers that are specialized in providing behavioral care for high, intense, complex medical needs,” O’Dell said, during a tour of the place Thursday morning.

The facility caters to hospitalized and incarcerated people, but will treat anyone with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

It accepts Medicaid, Medicare and other insurances, and will also work with those without or lacking coverage. State money helped support the site.

River Edge’s inpatient side is expected to open next week and Mercer’s outpatient side is expected to open in late summer.

Teaching site

The collaborative space not only serves adults with specialized medical needs, but also teaches families, medical students and providers in Georgia how to properly care for and de-escalate them.

For example, a teaching room allows clinicians to watch a provider in training treat a patient with intellectual and developmental disabilities behind a two-way mirror. The provider can then bring the knowledge back to their own practice.

“They can immediately interject when the staff’s not doing something they should be doing that may cause the individual to deregulate,” O’Dell said.

She has seen some families, and even medical providers, give up in hectic situations involving relatives with complex medical needs. They often drop off their relatives at emergency rooms in an attempt to stabilize them.

“Families have burned out trying to support that all of the time,” O’Dell said. “We could actually show there’s a longer period of stability and convince a provider to give them another chance.”

Humane living space

The overnight living spaces were strategically built to prevent patients from injuring themselves or others, and encourage self-regulation of actions and emotions.

This inpatient area admits patients 24/7, and can hold 16 patients for up to 90 days before moving to another provider, transitional housing or with family. During the 90 days, each person will be paired with their own staff member.

Patients will have personal bedrooms, bathrooms and showers. They share a spacious in and outdoor leisure and recreation area with a basketball hoop, corn hole game, digital tablets, fidget toys and cozy neutral-colored hangout chairs.

Pieces of bedroom furniture – including a mattress, bedside table and shelves – are bolted into the floor, and soft seats are heavily weighted to avoid them from being lifted or thrown.

Door handles and towel racks swing down when pulled by anything heavier than a towel, to avoid any chance of a person harming themselves.

Those who may be a danger to themselves or others have access to two small calming rooms, which include forest wallpaper, a wide cushioned seat and optional weighted blankets, stuffed animals, and soothing sensory items. Behavior staff will monitor each room and report to a physician every 15 minutes as a patient calms down.

“Traditionally, you find these areas with just a solid color, padded walls and all,” O’Dell said. “(Here) they’re not just staring at four walls … We are not going to be using seclusion and restraint at this facility.”

While seclusion and restraint tactics protect everyone including the patient, “the con is that it’s not very dignified,” she said.

This is the only River Edge facility that does not use “seclusion rings,” like at its other crisis service center at 60 Blandy Way in Milledgeville, O’Dell said.

Specialized doctors, medicine

The facility houses a retail pharmacy and a range of specialized medical services, which is rare to find all in one setting for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Dr. Jonathan E. Smith, director of the Mercer Center for IDD Care, or the outpatient side, said many medicines are hard to find and expensive in common pharmacies.

“We’ve worked with the pharmacy to make sure that the list of medicines that are available is curated especially for the people that are going to be needing to be served in this population,” Smith said.

An extensive scope of services include internal medicine, dentistry, neurology, Gastroenterology, physical therapy, audiology, psychiatry, ophthalmology, and speech and language pathology.

A sound-proof room helps test one’s hearing abilities and prevents noise sensory overload.

A physical therapy room features mock household challenges like a bathtub without water, a mattress, refrigerator, stairs and weights. The room is spacious with large windows to avoid claustrophobia, which can be a challenge for some people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“We’re able to offer services under one roof to these patients that might not be all consolidated in one place like this anywhere else,” Smith said.