Brooklyn Park, Minn.-based PrairieCare broke ground on its inpatient pediatric psychiatric hospital expansion in the same city.
The expansion will add 30,000 square feet and 30 inpatient beds, according to a Sept. 20 news release from PrairieCare. The health system estimates it will be able to care for 3,500 patients per year.
Minnesota currently has 202 pediatric psychiatric hospital beds statewide.
"Many patients, including children and teens in psychiatric crisis, end up in emergency rooms and often are stuck there for days at a time waiting for an available psychiatric bed and the critical help they need," Todd Archbold, PrairieCare CEO, said in the release. "The lack of beds available for children and adolescents needing immediate mental health care has become a crisis, and this expansion is just one way we're hoping to address it."