Loma Linda University Health Opens EmPATH Unit for Adults, Children Facing Mental Health Crises

Loma Linda University Health (LLUH), a panoply of eight professional schools and six hospitals, celebrated the opening of its EmPATH Behavioral Unit Tuesday at the Hinshaw Towers near Anderson Street in the eponymous city. The calm refuge is separate from emergency care and is designed for children and adults facing mental health crises. 

Healthcare in California has suffered massive funding cuts amid rising state costs and moribund federal subsidies. And, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects — financial strain, grief and social disconnection — mental health has worsened, with nearly 1 in 3 children (7.7%) and 1 in 6 adults (16.7%) across the state experiencing mental illness, according to a 2025 Los Angeles Outpatient Center assessment.

The Emergency, Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment and Healing (EmPATH) unit features 24 treatment spaces, 12 for children and teens and 12 for adults. The unit was funded by a $6 million state grant provided by California’s Behavioral Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission as well as several private, philanthropic donors, including CEO of the McMillen Family Foundation Chuck Campbell, Ken Ramirez, Alaina Mathews, Michael J. Walsh and the Yuhaaviatom of San Manuel Nation.

Dr. Anthony Hilliard, CEO and president for LLUH and its hospitals, provided the ceremonial remarks inaugurating EmPATH’s opening, calling the occasion a “surreal moment.”

“Hope is not a dream,” Hilliard said. “Hope happens when one individual moves towards another individual and is able to bridge a gap of whatever that individual needs,” adding that the EmPATH program is a “living testament” to “who we are and what we do.” 

Following the ceremony, Inland Empire Community News spoke with Lyndon Edwards, CEO and executive vice president for hospital affairs of LLUH Hospitals.

He said the new ward, while not typical to California hospitals, will measure success by how quickly mental health patients are moved from the emergency room and into the EmPATH unit for a stay of no more than 23 hours, aiming to stabilize and discharge about 75% to outpatient care while roughly 25% will receive inpatient treatment. 

“We have inpatient care, we have outpatient care, we have psychiatrists,” Edwards said. “We do a lot of things, but this is sort of a place where if you’re in a crisis, it serves as a . . . crisis stabilization unit, so that we can, with the help of trained and experienced behavioral health specialists, bring that patient to a better place than when they walked in.”

Edwards said he expects the unit to be full “on day one,” due to high demand.

Dr. Scott Zeller, Vituity vice president of acute psychiatry, is the creator of the EmPATH model. He said that traditional ERs often leave the sickest psychiatric patients underserved, underscoring the need for a more humane and therapeutic approach. 

Zeller said that roughly 75% to 80% of EmPATH patients stabilize and return home within 24 hours and explained that while 15% to 20% of similar patients in a standard ER might end up in physical restraints and heavily medicated, in an Empath unit that drops to only about one or two patients per 1,000. 

“What a difference that makes!” Zeller said. 

However dramatic the results, the impact requires deep, sustained collaboration.

“A space like this only matters because of the people that bring it to life — it takes an extraordinary team of nurses and physicians and therapists, residents and students, together with all of our operational and administrative leaders who support all of this work,” said Dr. Ara Anspikian, chair of the department of psychiatry, noting the importance of the educational work that underscores the program and its legacy. 

“We are caring for patients,” Anspikian said, “but we’re also modeling to the next generation what it means to provide psychiatric care with both integrity and intentionality.”