Behavioral Healthcare Center at Memphis has opened The Harbor View Nursing Home a 16-bed geriatric psychiatric facility near downtown Memphis that will specialize in the care of seniors 65 and older.

Its location at 1505 North Second affords it the opportunity to reach an underserved area while maintaining a small, home-like environment for those entrusted to its care. BHC Memphis will serve as a short-stay facility and stabilization hospital where both medical and psychiatric assessments and treatments are performed.

Officials say BHC will provide compassionate, acute psychiatric care for seniors who are experiencing a psychiatric episode requiring immediate care, such as those with dementia or those who suffer from mental illness. Goals of the facility include relieving the distress of its patients, balancing prescriptions to meet the needs of their diagnosis and educating family and loved ones so that they can manage the disease process. Individuals can be self-referred, referred by loved ones, physicians, nursing facilities or other medical providers.

THM has four other Behavioral Healthcare Centers, located in Clarksville, Columbia and Martin in Tennessee and Huntsville in Alabama, all specializing in geriatric care. The BHC facility in Memphis will be a teaching hospital, made possible by a partnership with the Universtiy of Tennessee Health Science Center. Medical students, residents and fellows will participate in inpatient psychiatric rotations at the facility.