JAMESTOWN, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – In response to a state senate bill, the North Dakota Department of Human Services was required to put together a plan to address acute psychiatric and residential care needs.

This included the need to identify the size and use of the State Hospital and need for state or private facilities outside of Jamestown. Human Services Research Institute (HSRI) was hired to identify the balance of inpatient, residential, and community service and identify the capacity of the State Hospital.

Hospital Superintendent Dr. Rosalie Etherington reports that there would be a reduction in beds in a new facility with some of those beds being moved out to the western part of the state.

Dr. Etherington says there could also be other forms of psychiatric care to prevent hospitalizations should be implemented statewide. She says the report finds there are an adequate number of beds in the state and the focus should be on expanding efforts in outpatient treatment and improve efficiency of the healthcare system.

Dr. Etherington added that there had been hospitals believing there were insufficient bed numbers, but HSRI identified that these use was less about the amount and more about “poor utilization of beds.”

Another portion of the report included a review of the buildings and current State Hospital campus. Dr. Etherington says they identified the cost of replacing their systems and the cost of building a new hospital.

It was found that 82% of all systems at the hospital were past their life expectancy. Built in 1885, none of the original buildings exist, but new buildings on top of old structures has created some inefficiencies on the current campus.

Dr. Etherington says they’ll now work on addressing some of the immediate findings of the study including beds in the west and aligning and prioritizing the strategic behavioral plan for North Dakota.

The full report is expected sometime later today.