JPS Health Network opens new emergency center for those in mental health crisis
JPS Health Network will open its new psychiatric emergency center next week, expanding desperately needed treatment to those in need.
The psychiatric emergency center is the hospital’s first major project of the $2.5 billion in bond projects the hospital is working on, and one of the most highly anticipated. For years, Fort Worth area residents, hospital leaders and consultants have identified additional bed space for mental health patients as an urgent need for Tarrant County. The center quadruples the amount of bed space for mental health patients, hospital leaders said.
“It is absolutely stunning,” Phil McGraw, better known as Dr. Phil, said during a ribbon cutting ceremony Wednesday. McGraw said the psychiatric emergency center was a model for communities across the country.
Tom Harris, whose daughter died by suicide in 2012, spoke about the urgent need for more mental health treatment in Tarrant County and communities across the country. In the wake of his daughter’s death, Harris co-founded the Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation, which operates suicide prevention programs and supports depression research.
“Our resources here and around the country are limited, with long waiting periods for private practice, and our public facilities that are routinely overwhelmed,” Harris said. “Know that the JPS psychiatric emergency center is a huge step forward toward providing better care for our community.”
The psychiatric emergency center is open 24/7, and operates like an emergency room, but solely for those experiencing behavioral health crises. The center will open Sept. 17. It is an upgrade over the existing psychiatric emergency center, said Dr. Nekesha Oliphant, the chair of the psychiatry department at JPS. The existing one is on the hospital’s 10th floor, meaning patients in crisis have to enter through the main hospital entrance and navigate their way to the hospital’s 10th floor.
The new center, by contrast, is a standalone building off of Allen Avenue next to the main JPS hospital. Patients can walk directly into the building to get care, Oliphant said, and the hope is that more patients will seek out the psychiatric emergency center when they need it.
“It is a direct entry to care,” Oliphant said. “We’re hoping to see a bit of a change, and that people seek care sooner.”
The space is also brighter, with more natural light and a more calming color scheme. There are also separate treatment spaces for adults and adolescents.
The center will also be easier for law enforcement to use when they’re responding to a mental health crisis, Oliphant added.
JPS is in the midst of a $2.5 billion construction plan to update the public hospital’s aging infrastructure. The new construction is being paid for primarily through cash the hospital has saved, as well as $800 million in bond proceeds that voters approved in 2018.
In the leadup to the bond vote, a blue ribbon committee tasked with reviewing the JPS system’s greatest needs identified mental health as one of the top priorities. The committee wrote that the hospital’s “total psychiatric inpatient bed count falls far short of both the current and 20-year predicted need.”
This story was originally published September 10, 2025 at 3:39 PM.
