Bill creating behavior health teaching hospitals passes Senate as part of ‘Live Healthy’ agenda

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Florida Senate passed a bill that will create a new designation for behavioral health teaching hospitals, aiming to bolster mental health care.

Sen. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, is carrying the bill, SB 330, in the Senate, and a similar bill, HB 1617 is being carried in the House by Rep. Sam Garrison, R-Fleming Island.

Boyd noted this is part of Senate President Kathleen Passidomo’s Live Healthy 2024 legislative agenda.

“Our behavioral health teaching hospitals will train the next generation of professionals in innovative and integrated care for those with behavioral health needs,” Passidomo, R-Naples, said in a press release Wednesday.

Passidomo said lawmakers will also provide “inpatient and outpatient care and support families who have a loved one that cannot return to the home and is in need of long-term residential treatment for mental health challenges.”

A delete all amendment was approved on the Senate floor.

The legislature will “identify and designate multiple behavioral health teaching hospitals that work to provide the necessary research, education, and services to enhance the state’s behavioral health workforce,” according to the amendment.

The hospitals include: Tampa General Hospital, University of Florida Health Shands Hospital, University of Florida Health Jacksonville, and Jackson Memorial Hospital.

These hospitals will conduct research, provide education and training, collaborate with other schools to promote and enhance a modernized behavioral health system of care, and more. 

Additionally, the bill allows the Agency for Health Care Administration to designate up to four more behavioral health teaching hospitals to be added to the list, the press release said.

The bill will create the Florida Center for Behavioral Health Workforce within the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute at the University of South Florida.

The center will “address issues of workforce supply and demand in behavioral health professions, including issues of recruitment, retention, and workforce resources.”

“This is groundbreaking in terms of mental health, and teaching hospitals in the state of Florida,” said Sen. Darryl Ervin Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, in debate.

Rouson, who cosponsored the bill, thanked Passidomo for her leadership on this “critical issue.”