The interior demolition phase has started for a 24-bed inpatient behavioral health unit at MultiCare Deaconess Hospital. 

The roughly 14,000-square-foot unit for adults will be located on the hospital’s sixth floor, which has largely been used for storage.

“We’re hoping to open the unit at the end of 2026,” says Samantha Clark, assistant vice president of strategy and business development for MultiCare Behavioral Health Network.

Portland, Oregon-based Clark/Kjos Architects LLC is the architect for the project, and Spokane-based Bouten Construction Co. is the contractor.

The entire project is estimated to cost $16 million.

Last year, the Washington State Department of Commerce awarded the MultiCare Inland Northwest Foundation a $6 million grant to help fund the new behavioral health unit. MultiCare will cover the remaining $10 million cost.

Although the new unit will be MultiCare’s first inpatient behavioral health unit in its Inland Northwest region, the health care system has been making other efforts to meet rising demand for behavioral health services in the area.

“We did an outpatient behavioral health clinic at the Northeast Community Center in October of 2023,” Clark says. “We also have been working on growing a program called collaborative care.”

Collaborative care is a model of care through which MultiCare behavioral health therapists and prescribers work within a medical setting, for example, within the primary care setting, Clark explains.

The need for additional behavioral health services is increasing. In the six years since Clark moved to Spokane, she says she’s seen MultiCare’s internal referrals for behavioral health services increase every year.

Clark points to multiple factors behind the rise in demand, including population growth, as well as increased awareness and acceptance of behavioral health services.

She also says there’s an element of “if you build it, it will come,” regarding the demand.

“Once you open a service and people have hope that they can find that service and get into care, then you start to really see the true demand,” Clark says.

That happened when MultiCare opened the clinic at the Northeast Community Center.

“Our referrals more than doubled immediately,” she says.

MultiCare is continuing to explore future options to increase behavioral health services, including actively searching for additional space for another behavioral health clinic, Clark says.

“We have a great start, but we know that we’re just scratching the surface of behavioral health growth here in Spokane,” says Clark.