Over the past several years, the Governor’s Office and Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) have been working diligently to secure partnerships with community providers to provide diversion and step-down options for state hospital patients as a part of the Right Help, Right Now initiative. The optimal safe operating capacity for hospital census is 85 percent. State hospital census has averaged significantly higher than this consistently operating at or above a 98 percent utilization rate in recent years. Identifying potential diversion opportunities with community hospitals has been a key focus of the agency to alleviate the state hospital census and place individuals in or nearer to their home communities.

Chesapeake Regional Healthcare is in the process of constructing a new, 20-bed inpatient psychiatric unit which will accept voluntary admissions as well as admissions under a temporary detention order (TDO) or involuntary civil commitment. This unit is anticipated to be completed and begin accepting patients in the summer of 2026. In order to identify how best to leverage these new beds to alleviate the state hospital census, DBHDS and Chesapeake engaged in discussions to identify priority populations and develop cost estimates, all of which is detailed in this report.