Eagle Living Center Open at VA

Eagle Living Center officially opened with a ribbon-cutting Tuesday morning at the Sheridan VA Medical Center.

Andrea Henderson, who’s the VA nurse executive, said the new facility is a 15-bed short-stay geriatric behavioral health unit.

She said that includes acute psychiatric care, mental health residential treatment programs, primary care, home-based primary care. She said Eagle Living Center will complement and kind of dovetail into all of those.

Henderson said the first patients in the new facility are expected to arrive next Monday.

She said “short-term” generally refers to a stay of around 45 days, but with the VA’s population, stays at Eagle Living could range from 20 to 90 days. She said the length of stay will depend on how the VA can get them stabilized on medications, behavior plans and on the patients’ social skills.

She said the goal is to get the patient back to his or her normal living situations.

The effort is to make the patient’s surroundings feel as homelike as possible, so the 15 beds are divided among rooms. Henderson said there are four double rooms and the rest are singles.

She said the VA strives to provide a culture of comfort. The unit includes a garden area and large common spaces that are bright and have wide halls.