Children’s of Alabama Fights the Youth Mental Health Crisis

ByAnsley FrAnco

Five years ago, the Children’s of Alabama hospital opened the Psychiatric Intake Response Center (PIRC), a confidential phone center to help adult callers find mental health resources for children and adolescents. Since March 2018, the PIRC has grown from just four employees to 14 part-time and full-time employees now.

According to The Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation studies, there has been an increase in children’s mental health needs following social isolation due to the pandemic, especially among children who experience adverse childhood experiences.

“Right now, we are seeing kids in such a crisis that they are thinking about harming themselves and are experiencing suicidal feelings,” said Cynthia Jones, Director of the Psychiatric Intake Response Center. “And much of that, I think, has been driven by the fact that there has been so much disruption to children’s lives, and that is primarily because of the pandemic. We’ve had children who had these issues prior to the pandemic. So, it’s not like all the sudden the pandemic caused it, but it certainly exacerbated what is an underlying concern about children’s mental health.”

In 2017, after a search team from Children’s of Alabama visited three psychiatric intake centers in Ohio and Colorado, Jones said the group felt that a program like this would best meet the needs of the communities in Alabama. “The reason for that is because these programs were helping anyone in the community identify and find the most appropriate mental health resources, and a lot of people were at a loss for what to do once they find out their child has a mental health concern,” she said.

When an adult calls in, they speak to a licensed mental health professional who will conduct a brief questionnaire to determine the issues concerning their child. The PIRC therapist will then access the database of mental health providers they think would be the best solution for the situation.

Over the past five years, the database has grown from 250 providers in central Alabama to more than 1,600 across the state. “Our team continues to add and update providers in the community. This is actually public knowledge. We’re not providing any information that you couldn’t find online or by calling these practices,” Jones said. “We are not endorsing anyone. We simply hope we can take down some of the barriers by identifying available mental health providers, and offering what we think would be the best resource in their community for their child to get help.”

The therapists not only answer the phone and provide resources but also see the patients who come into the Emergency Department as part of the psychiatric consult team. The team is composed of the Medical Director, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and licensed mental health professionals.

“We felt like we needed that level of qualified therapists in order to better understand the needs of our callers, and be able to not only find the right resources, but to also educate and answer questions they have about what’s going on with their child,” Jones said. “We’ve found that parents have been relieved to speak to someone knowledgeable about mental health concerns for children and adolescents, educate them, and point them in the right direction. We are able to help families avoid a crisis because they are taking steps ahead of time before a problem turns into an emergency.”

This PIRC is not a crisis or suicide hotline, though Jones said some adults have called in after a child has done something that gives them concern or has expressed suicidal thoughts. In circumstances like this, PIRC therapists advise the family to take the child to the nearest emergency room to receive treatment. As the PIRC continues to provide this service to the community, Jones hopes people will gain greater access to mental health care.

Eventually they founded Assurance Scientific Laboratories, which has recently rebranded as Streamline Scientific and Molecular Designs. They have just moved most of their operations into a new state-of-the-art facility in Birmingham’s Perimeter Park. The rapid growth and success of their efforts meant they had their choice of locations when they moved, but they opted to stay in Birmingham.

“It wasn’t guaranteed that this would stay here,” Austin said. “We have clients throughout the country, and there were discussions to move. But we didn’t want to. We had to sell Birmingham to our investors. We told them that Birmingham has great talent. It’s a great medical community, a great biotech community, and a great place to live.”

“Board members were largely unfamiliar with all Birmingham has to offer, and we said ‘look at what we’ve built here. Look at UAB. We can be headquartered here,’” said Shawn Hood, president. “Today, we collectively see the full value and potential of Birmingham, its talent base, and vast resources.”

“I’m really excited about the facility,” Austin said. “It was fun to design and build.”

The new location boasts over 7,000 square feet of space for CLIA lab, manufacturing, and research and development, in addition to a 25,000-square-foot distribution facility. Those spaces are now ISO-certified, and include clean room manufacturing, three negative pressure R&D laboratories, six high-speed Tecan filler machines, and 500 square feet of cold chain storage. The companies currently employ approximately 130 people.

It’s quite a change from the humble beginnings of starting the lab in their medical practice. After taking two years to establish that lab, Thomas and Austin had a skill set they wanted to share. “We realized there was a gap in the market and wondered why it was so hard to do this,” Austin said. “We felt we could offer a consulting service for physicians who wanted to establish a lab in their own practice by developing what we could and outsourcing what we could, while the physician only had to deal with one person. That didn’t exist in the lab world.”

Now branded Streamline Scientific, the company will equip and optimize an existing lab or establish a new lab. Or physicians can avail themselves of the Streamline Scientific lab and often get results within 24 hours.

But the services don’t end there. They not only work with physicians, but other labs as well. “If another reference lab, even a competitor to Streamline, wants to bring on some new tests, we can help them. We can help them buy the equipment and get it running,” Austin said. “We have our own lab, so we’ve experienced all the problems our clients are going to have.”

They offer more than advice, however. “We also design, develop, and make tests to sell to other labs,” Austin said. That work falls under the scope of Molecular Designs.

“Molecular Designs looks at what new lab tests we can offer,” Hood said. “And manufacturing our own ingredients helps from a cost standpoint. Other labs are buying their ingredients from large manufacturers. We believe we set ourselves apart because we can provide better service and be more flexible. If we can provide those things and be more competitive on the price, then that’s why they come to us.”

The goals of the two companies support each other. Molecular Designs sells product to over 150 labs around the country, even as Streamline Scientific helps set up labs and runs lab work from its original Acton Road location. “Since CLIA lab uses our product every day, we know our product inside and out. If any problems come up, we’re going to know first. It’s a kind of downstream quality control. We also find out from our reps on the ground what the doctors want,” Hood said. “It helps our research and development to know what we should be working on next.”

They already have a plan in that regard. “Infectious disease is our primary space right now, so we are going to continue to finish out the panels most desired in that space,” Austin said. “We are expanding into GI. We also have plans to get into cancer tests. COVID has expanded PCR technology. Our expertise in PCR allows us to do some tests in a much more affordable way. That’s a direction we are moving next. We want to continue making quality products that are easier to use, and to run them on a smaller platform and make them cost effective.”

With the opening of the new facility, it’s clear both companies will maintain their headquarters in Birmingham, while they continue to expand.

“Most people wouldn’t expect to find this in Perimeter Park,” Hood said. “This is in Birmingham and available to our physicians. It’s in their backyard. Our private equity partners said we needed a world-class facility that local employees would want to work at, and that when anyone from across the US comes to look at it, they would be impressed. I think we’ve accomplished that.”

The Streamline

At Streamline Scientific we provide fast and reliable diagnostic testing using PCR and traditional microbiology to identify specific pathogens. This arms clinicians with the data needed to prescribe the most appropriate treatment.