Lifespan, Rhode Island’s largest health system, is taking a step toward improving access to mental health services with the opening of Lifespan Outpatient Psychiatry and Urgent Care in East Greenwich.

The new center, which is located at 1454 South County Trail, integrates Lifespan’s behavioral services with those of Gateway Healthcare, for the area’s first walk-in urgent care for mental health issues.

“Rhode Island is ranked among the nation’s highest for people with serious mental health issues,” said Daniela Boerescu, M.D., director of Lifespan Outpatient Psychiatry and Urgent Care. “Our goal in opening this location is to provide urgent care and outpatient services to make mental health services more accessible, especially to those people who need attention right away. We want to be able to help patients and their family members quickly in those times.”

Urgent care, which is available for those 18 years or older, offers onsite mental health assessment, access to crisis psychiatry as necessary, crisis stabilization services, and family education and support. And both urgent care and outpatient services support a broad range of medical and psychotherapy treatments, including medication management, individual psychotherapy, group therapy, couples and marital therapy, and family therapy. The on-site team is multidisciplinary and is made up of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and community treatment specialists.

“We are able to treat patients with a variety of behavioral health conditions,” explained Boerescu. “Those include mood disorders, anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders and other behavioral health issues such as eating disorders, attention deficit disorder, job pressures and stress management.”

According to Richard J. Goldberg, M.D., Lifespan’s senior vice president for Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, the center’s affiliation with Lifespan means that if more intensive services are needed, the center can seamlessly link patients to all Lifespan psychiatry and behavioral health services, including inpatient and partial hospital care.

“Because of Lifespan’s depth and breadth of psychiatry and behavioral health experience, we are able to provide a full range of services to patients throughout the region, as well as draw from the latest research findings because of our affiliation with the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University,” said Goldberg. “Patients at Lifespan Outpatient Psychiatry and Urgent Care have full access to this team of highly skilled, highly trained clinicians.”

Lifespan Outpatient Psychiatry and Urgent Care is located at 1454 South County Trail, Suite 2200, East Greenwich. Urgent care is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. Crisis telephone support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 723-1915 or 553-1031. To schedule an outpatient appointment, call 606-4415. And, to learn more, visit www.lifespan.org/Outpatient-Psychiatry-and-Urgent-Care.html.