Since 1875

TREATMENT MALLS AT BROUGHTON: An Overview

The function of the modern state hospital is one of recovery-focused, active treatment with emphasis on choice and collaboration.  Patients, family members, and advocates support the need for recovery in a supportive, enriching environment.

To overcome the limitations of ward-based programming in psychiatric hospitals, “Treatment Malls” were conceived and begun at Middletown Psychiatric Hospital in Middletown, NY in 1993.  Since that time, many more hospitals have incorporated this idea.  The treatment mall accomplishes several things:

• It provides rehabilitation in a setting that is accessible to the persons who need it most.
• It provides a collaboration of resources in a psychiatric world that has multiple staffing constraints.
• It makes the hospital more like the outside community, by separating the hospital’s residential and treatment functions, and making transition back into the community a smoother journey.
• It reduces the dependence of patients on hospital staff and conversely the power of staff over patients.

Broughton Hospital has joined in on this method of “best practice” in the delivery of bio-psychosocial treatment to its patients. Treatment Malls have been developed in each division at Broughton Hospital. They are centrally located areas within which rehabilitative psychosocial interventions (PSIs) and other treatment services can be delivered.  The Treatment Malls are locked, assuring both safety and ready availability, and the wards are closed during the Mall program hours, in order that both staff and patients spend the “working day” on the Treatment Mall.

It is necessary to have an environment that is physically pleasing and welcoming to patients.  Treatment Malls are decorated to facilitate warmth and an attractive quality for the patients. The Malls contain psycho-educational group rooms, exercise rooms, medical areas, craft rooms, music rooms, and other areas where active treatment takes place. There is also access to outdoor areas for recreation and relaxation.

The primary focus of each Treatment Mall is an array of PSI skill-building modules.  These are organized on a recovery and rehabilitation model.  Treatment modules include such groups as medication education, symptom management, communication skills, anger and depression management, self-awareness, cognitive remediation, creative expressive arts, recreational therapy, and other classes designed to meet patient needs and individualized goals.

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