In an interview with Invest: Mike Estramonte, founder and CEO of StarMed Healthcare and Katie Blessing Center, discussed why a holistic and dignity-centered approach to patient care and facility design is needed, and how funding continues to be the primary challenge faced by the behavioral healthcare industry.

What are some of the projects that you are focused on and what differentiates the company from other care providers in Charlotte?

The core focus now is on the Katie Blessing Center. We essentially transitioned out of the pandemic, and did not want to downsize. Our mission has always been to go in, find the problem no one wants to tackle, and make a change.

I was at a reception here in Charlotte and ran into a couple of physicians who worked in the ED at Atrium. They were telling me about the problem they were having with children who were waiting in these emergency departments sometimes for weeks or months for a psychiatric bed when they were in crisis.

And that is how the idea for Katie Blessing came about. It started off as a smaller project, but once we identified the issue, we realized it was not just a lack of beds, but it was a lack of continuity of care. These children are being sent not just to nearby states like Virginia, but all the way to Illinois and California for psychiatric beds…

 

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