Human Services

SOS Mn Security Hospital

Statewide Outcome(s):

SOS MN Security Hospital supports the following statewide outcome(s).

People in Minnesota are safe.

Minnesotans are healthy.

Context:

Mental illnesses can affect persons of any age, race, religion, or income. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness – Minnesota (NAMI-MN), it is estimated that mental illnesses affect one in five families. Mental illness falls along a continuum of severity. Without treatment, the consequences of mental illness for the individual and society are staggering and can lead to an individual with high severity to commit acts that seriously endanger themselves or others.

The Minnesota Security Hospital (MSH) in St. Peter provides multidisciplinary treatment services to adults and adolescents who have the most severe illnesses and who have endangered others and now present a serious risk to public safety. Persons are admitted into the MSH from throughout the states pursuant to judicial or other lawful orders, for assessment and/or treatment of acute and chronic major mental disorders, including persons committed by the courts as mentally ill and dangerous. The population served in the secure perimeter of the Minnesota Security Hospital is growing at a forecasted rate of five to seven per year. With an average length of stay of 6.2 years, in fiscal year 2012, 233 persons were served by this program. An additional 167 persons received services in the MSH Transition Program, 213 persons received services in the treat to competency program (Criminal Court Procedure Rule 20.01 and 20.02), and 39 persons received services in the Forensic Nursing Home.

The population admitted to the Minnesota Security Hospital present many challenges and serving this population successfully requires that the state meet all those challenges well. In recent years, the Minnesota Security Hospital has had numerous client safety issues and employee injuries, indications that we need to do more to meet the needs of the people we’re serving and the employees who serve them.

Strategies:

The Minnesota Security Hospital provides treatment, comprehensive, court-ordered forensic evaluations; including competency to stand trial and pre-sentence mental health evaluations. The Minnesota Security Hospital operates a transition program that provides a supervised residential setting offering social rehabilitation treatment to increase self-sufficiency and build the skills necessary for a safe return to the community.

In response to physical plant shortcomings contributing to client and staff safety problems, the 2012 Legislature appropriated $3.7 million in bonding for the predesign and design of the first phase of a two-phase project to remodel existing facilities and develop new residential, program, activity and ancillary facilities on the upper campus of the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center. This action launched the necessary planning activities for renovation and construction needs to improve patient safety and reduce employee injuries associated with the environment. The department will remain in regular communication regarding the results of that planning and next steps in meeting the physical plant needs related to treating our clients.

MSH shares the St. Peter campus with the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP). Designs are intended to address issues the department faces as it operates MSH and MSOP on the same campus. This project will result in the eventual relocation of all MSH residential and program activities from the lower campus to the upper campus. The lower campus will be reused and redeveloped for MSOP as a separate project. New facilities on the upper campus will allow the long-term needs of different populations served by MSH to be met.

Besides the secure and transition programs operated at the Minnesota Security Hospital, the program also operates a forensic nursing home which provides services to those individuals who are in need of nursing home level of care and are committed as mentally ill and dangerous, sexual psychopathic personality (SPP), a sexually dangerous person (SDP), or those on medical release from the Department of Corrections (DOC).

Results:

Important performance measures for this program include:

·         monitoring the percent of eligible patients are participating in therapeutic work activities which build skills and work habits in preparation for transition to a job placement in the community. Eligible patients include those in the Forensics Transitions Service (FTS) and Minnesota Security Hospital (MSH) Young Adult and Adolescent Program and Special Needs Services.

·         increasing the percent of persons who are successfully and safely provisionally discharged from forensic transition services into the community. This measure is important because it ensures that persons committed to the Minnesota Security Hospital are completing their treatment and being successfully placed into the community.

·         reducing the number of worker’s compensation claims. This measure is important because it monitors the safety of our work environment for our employees and the rate of worker’s compensation claims.

Performance Measures Notes:

1.     Previous represents Calendar Year (CY) 2012, first quarter and the current represents CY 2012, second quarter. (Source: DHS internal performance tracking)

2.     Previous represents CY 2011 and the current represents CY 2012, first two quarters. (Source: SOS medical records system)

3.     Previous represents CY 2012 first quarter and the current represents CY 2012 second quarter. (Source: DHS internal performance tracking)