Sanford Bemidji Crisis Center's EmPATH Unit Offers Local Behavioral Health Resources

Before the Sanford Bemidji Crisis Center opened on Hannah Avenue NW in October 2022, residents in psychiatric crisis had no adult inpatient psychiatric beds within 90 miles of Bemidji. A Bemidji Now episode last week, featuring Sanford Health staff and community partners, spotlighted what the 12,000-square-foot facility at 3220 Hannah Avenue NW now provides: eight adult inpatient beds, three EmPATH units, and around-the-clock mobile crisis response for a region where demand had already been rising sharply.

The numbers that drove the project tell the story plainly. Sanford Bemidji's Mobile Crisis Unit saw a 23% increase in encounters between 2019 and 2020, followed by a 44% spike the following year. In 2020 alone, 406 patients required inpatient psychiatric care through Sanford Bemidji Medical Center, all of them dependent on long-distance transfers. The crisis center, built at a total cost of $6.9 million through a three-way funding partnership among Sanford Health, Beltrami County, and the State of Minnesota, was designed to keep that care local.

The facility's three EmPATH units, short for Emergency Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment and Healing, are the only ones in Minnesota that can accommodate children. The model was developed by Scott Zeller, MD, Vice President of Acute Psychiatry at Vituity, and is built around rapid stabilization in a low-stimulation, non-coercive environment. Research tied to the model shows roughly 75% of patients can be stabilized and discharged without inpatient admission. Studies show the approach reduces inpatient psychiatric admissions by as much as 53%, cuts emergency department boarding time by approximately 80%, and results in less than 1% of patients requiring restraint.

The facility sits on the Hannah Avenue NW corridor between the main Sanford Bemidji Medical Center and the Sanford Health PrimeWest Residential Support Center, forming a near-continuous behavioral-health campus. Bemidji-based EAPC Architects Engineers designed the building; Kraus-Anderson Construction served as general contractor. Groundbreaking took place October 13, 2021, with approximately 85 community members in attendance. The grand opening ceremony, hosted by Susan Jarvis, President and CEO of Sanford Health of Northern Minnesota, was held September 29, 2022, with patients formally accepted beginning October 13 of that year, exactly one year to the day after ground broke.

Jay Coughenour, Regional Administrator for Sanford Behavioral Health, has described the facility and the adjacent PrimeWest Residential Support Center as representing an important continuum of care for the region. The structural need was well-documented before a single wall went up: 82% of all licensed mental health professionals in Minnesota practice in the Twin Cities metro area, leaving rural counties like Beltrami chronically underserved. The Duluth News Tribune documented 52 suicides in Beltrami County between 2010 and 2015, and suicide rates in rural Minnesota have continued rising in the years since.

The Bemidji Now episode, hosted by Ashlea McMartin and Sarah Zachow, addressed practical questions families most often face: when to call 911 versus a mobile crisis line, how insurance and financial assistance work, and what follow-up options exist after a crisis visit. Sanford's mobile crisis response operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for both adults and children. For non-emergent situations, Sanford's crisis intake line and Beltrami County Behavioral Health, which provides service coordination and civil commitment pre-petition screening, are both available.