Golisano Children’s Hospital Breaks Ground on New Pediatric Urgent Care Center

Golisano Children’s hospital leaders, faculty and staff, and supporters have broken ground on a new pediatric behavioral health urgent care center, the first of its kind in the Finger Lakes region.

Called the Brighter Days Pediatric Urgent Care, the facility will be the area’s first-ever walk-in mental health clinic for young people up to age 18, who can show up with no prior appointment to get immediate care. The facility was supported with $1 million initial funding from the Brighter Days Foundation.

“There’s currently no clinics like this from the city of Rochester to Batavia," said Michael Scharf, M.D., psychiatrist-in-chief at GCH, said in a recent interview with 13WHAM News. “So, this is geographically strategic, as well as quantitatively strategic.”

The Brighter Days Pediatric Urgent Care will be an expansion and remodeling of the first floor of an existing URMC behavioral health facility, with an expected opening date of 2024. Scharf estimates the walk-in crisis center will see up to 3,000 patients per year. The facility will be open 7 days a week, from noon to 8 p.m.

The cumulative effect of the urgent care would be to provide immediate and safe care outside the emergency setting. "The idea is that the space will be calming and comforting. All the services we offer will be family-centered,” said Scharf.

Brighter Days Foundation director Annette Weld said her organization came forward to help fund this project in order to address the urgency of the behavioral health crisis.

“This gift will address the national crisis in child and adolescent mental health on a local level,” said Weld. “We don’t have time to sit around and discuss the problem without action. It is exciting to see the changes coming. There is still a lot of work to be done and more funds to raise but we are seeing movement in a positive way and that is great!"

The construction of the Brighter Days Pediatric Urgent Care represents the continuation of GCH’s ongoing efforts to address the behavioral health crisis happening both nationally and in Monroe County. In June of 2020, the Golisano Behavioral Health and Wellness Center opened on South Avenue. Established with a generous gift from Tom Golisano and constructed during the course of several years, the Center was intended to immediately double to available outpatient appointments in the region.

The Golisano Behavioral Health and Wellness Center has delivered on that promise, helping to significantly ease the burden of long waitlists in Monroe County. When the center was constructed, the waitlist for services was nearly 400. Now, the average for the region is 150, and in combination with the Mobile Crisis Unit, the center has helped prevent severe outcomes and emergency department visits for children. The Brighter Days Pediatric Urgent Care will help serve patients and connect them to services at the center.

URMC ICU Nurse Lauren Opladen, a former pediatric behavioral health patient who has served as advocate for the expansion of GCH services, attended the groundbreaking and spoke about her experience getting crisis care several years ago:

“To go through what I went through, the process of sleeping on a couch for four days before I even got a bed in the impatient unit, to realize that others have to go through that — I knew there had to be a change then and there,” she said.