Healthcare Facilities: Facility Planning & Design to the Continuum for Acute Mental Healthcare

Historically, care for acute mental illness has occurred within distinctly inpatient facilities, often in locations remote from urban cores or population centers. Even in the 20th century, much of this care was provided in a singular setting, where the continuum of care consisted of either being in the psychiatric hospital or receiving no care at all. Today, and over the past decade or two, awareness of mental illness has rapidly increased, along with reductions in longstanding negative stigmatization of this care, the people and families affected, and the settings where this recovery and care occurs. The continuum of mental health care now spans several setting, ranging from traditional inpatient facilities, to supportive housing, ranges of outpatient care, crisis stabilization, and specialized care for those with co-occurring mental and physical health illnesses. Understanding the physical spaces needed to support this continuum is critical for the design profession, in order to help continue creating and assisting providers with environments optimized for care and recovery of such a vulnerable population.