Continuum of Care

Today, behavioral health is a fragmented, nearly un-navigable, system of care where patients and families encounter, at best, difficult transitions from one setting to another and, at worst, provider shortages so severe that wait times can be life-threatening. The result of fragmentation and provider shortages is that many patients only receive care when they’re in crisis.

SUN has begun a pursuit to stitch together the various levels of care by offering services at every level of acuity and by providing our own care liaisons dedicated to helping patients navigate to the appropriate level of care without undue wait times. SUN currently provides services to care for patients of all ages from crisis through long-term recovery in nine different states. But care is currently divided between crisis and long-term recovery. Our hospitals provide a comprehensive care designed to support individuals through hospitalization with 24/7 observation and safety precautions, to intensive group therapy in structured outpatient programs. Currently, disconnected from the hospital (crisis) services, SUN provides community and home-based services including therapy and skills-based treatment in both individual and group settings for patients in need of longer-term recovery services. Some of those services include psychosocial rehabilitation, intensive in-home services, case management, day treatment, school-based services and medication management.

In Houston, we have connected our acute services, SUN Behavioral Houston, and our home and community-based services, Deblin Health Concepts. The early results are encouraging, both in terms of the number of patients engaging in the full continuum of treatment as well as their outcomes relative to patients who end treatment once they stabilize from crisis. We are actively looking for opportunities to build the full treatment continuum to our other eight states.