The opening of our new AMP unit represents a significant step forward in caring for the increasing volume of adolescent patients in our community who require an intensive inpatient level of care.
William C. Torrey, MDDartmouth Health’s Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) marked the opening of its new adolescent medical psychiatry (AMP) unit on Tuesday, April 1, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The six-bed inpatient unit will provide care to adolescents ages 12 to 17 experiencing mental health crises.
“The opening of our new AMP unit represents a significant step forward in caring for the increasing volume of adolescent patients in our community who require an intensive inpatient level of care,” said William C. Torrey, MD, chair of psychiatry at Dartmouth Health. “The patient- and family-focused treatment program will include diagnostic assessment, formulation, and treatment using evidence-based therapeutic interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy and family therapy, and psychiatric care.”
The AMP unit is a collaboration between the Children’s Hospital at DHMC and Dartmouth Health’s psychiatry department. Treatment on the unit will be delivered by a multidisciplinary team including child psychiatrists, child psychologists, pediatricians, mental health therapists, social workers, occupational therapists, nurses and mental health technicians. Complementary art, music and pet therapy will also be offered.
The space where the AMP unit is located, on the second level of DHMC’s Wing C, is newly renovated and designed to be bright, modern and cheerful, featuring wall murals and private rooms with windows. Streaming music, movies and television will be available, along with personal Chromebooks and tablets so patients’ academic work can continue during hospitalization. The unit also has access to a secure outdoor activity space, which will open this summer.
“This new unit demonstrates Dartmouth Health’s ongoing commitment to creating greater access to care and meeting the mental and behavioral health needs of our region and how Dartmouth Health Children’s leverages the full power of our academic health system to meet the unique needs of children and adolescents,” said Keith J. Loud, MD, MSc, physician-in-chief of Dartmouth Health Children’s.
DHMC will begin admitting patients in the AMP unit on Monday, April 7.
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and largest private employer, serves patients across New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,300 providers in nearly every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. Its network of hospitals, outpatient centers, clinics and home care facilities, spans a broad geographical area. Year after year, DHMC is named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, northern New England’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of less than than 60 total nationally; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital, the Golisano Children's Hospital at Dartmouth Health, and more than 20 locations around the region; eight member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont, Hampstead, and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Dartmouth Health Home Care; Dartmouth Health Connected Care Center for Telehealth, serving patients as far away as Texas; and more than 30 primary and multi-specialty clinics across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its partnership with Dartmouth College, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the White River Junction VA Medical Center, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials with international impact. Dartmouth Health and its more than 16,000 employees are committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in the communities it serves and to providing every patient with exceptional, state-of-the-art, personalized care. Learn more at dartmouth-health.org.
About Dartmouth Health Children's
Dartmouth Health Children’s is the most comprehensive pediatric healthcare system in the region and the first integrative medicine children’s health system in the country. Dartmouth Health Children’s is fully integrated in Dartmouth Health and anchored in Lebanon, NH, by Dartmouth Health’s Golisano Children’s Hospital (also a member of the nationwide Golisano Children’s Alliance): home of the highest acuity neonatal intensive care unit and only pediatric intensive care unit in New Hampshire, along with the only adolescent medical-psychiatry unit in northern New England. Through a unique partnership with the state of New Hampshire at Hampstead Hospital, Dartmouth Health Children’s also provides the state’s only inpatient psychiatric care for children and adolescents. Dartmouth Health Children’s advances knowledge through groundbreaking research and education as the primary pediatric partner of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and delivers the best patient- and family-centered care for infants, children, and adolescents in a range of settings across New Hampshire and Vermont. Outpatient specialty visits and same-day surgery services are available at Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics in Manchester, NH, with pediatric primary care at nearly every Dartmouth Health member location.