Loss of daughter led surgeon, wife to advocate for mental health

Ted Uroskie, M.D., is used to fixing things. As a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, he helps patients with mastectomies and traumatic injuries restore their appearance and functionality. But he and his wife, Susannah, were unable to restore their daughter, Alexa, to full functioning after she suffered a psychotic break during a visit home from college in 2015.

Alexa was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She spent a year in and out of a psychiatric hospital before she achieved a stable condition.

During Alexa’s struggles, Susannah joined the National Alliance for Mental Illness, or NAMI. She rose to chair of the Hampton Roads chapter, shared Alexa’s journey, and is a vocal advocate for mental health awareness. Susannah also serves as vice-chair of the Virginia Beach Community Services Board.

As pandemic restrictions waned in 2022, Alexa was hospitalized again for a month. She married and got pregnant in the summer of 2022 and appeared to be doing better. But on Presidents’ Day 2023, Alexa died by suicide, leaving her parents and three siblings bereft. Ted and Susannah retreated for a time to grieve, but Alexa’s death eventually fueled their passionate advocacy to help other families avoid the same wrenching loss.

“It’s a broken system,” Dr. Uroskie says, referring to common limits on insurance coverage and the continuing stigma attached to mental illness. “It’s a medical condition, just like heart disease and diabetes, and it’s just as lethal. It needs to be treated like any other chronic illness.”

Dr. Uroskie works mainly at Sentara Leigh Hospital. He approached President Joanne Inman about an event to promote mental health and self-care among hospital teams and the community during Mental Health Awareness Month in May. Inman had the hospital illuminated in green at night for the month and held an illumination event urging her teams to take care of themselves as well as their patients.

“Our goals are threefold,” Inman says. “Raise awareness, support our teams — who do so much for others — and cultivate a relationship with the community.”

A multidisciplinary team from Sentara has been working across 12 hospital and five freestanding emergency departments and our outpatient program to make enhancements to behavioral health, including real-time monitoring of psychiatric bed availability, and rapid intervention and remote screenings in our emergency departments. The high demand for behavioral health services is putting stress on the healthcare system, which led to five psychiatric hospitals in Virginia halting new admissions at their facilities in 2021.

Here are some of Sentara’s behavioral health (BH) enhancements since 2021:

• Sentara Behavioral Health Care Center Virginia Beach launched in the Landstown area and now offers on-site assistance for patients who need crisis support but not hospitalization.
• Redesigned BH spaces in emergency departments (EDs) enhance safety for patients and staff.
• BH TelePsych service offers quicker evaluations and treatment plans.
• Centralized call center connects callers to a Sentara team with real-time knowledge of available inpatient beds.
• Increased staffing: Sentara has hired more than 80 BH practitioners since 2021.
• Sentara Opioid Bridge to Recovery (SOBR) program connects patients with community-based programs before they are discharged from EDs and prescribes Buprenorphine to sustain them until they enter outpatient treatment.
• Quick access to addiction treatment: Sentara Health Plans offers a Medicaid Managed Care benefit called Addiction Recovery & Treatment Services (ARTS) for all Optima Family Care and Optima Community Care members.
• ED triage protocol takes a multidisciplinary approach to rapid intervention at the bedside for agitation, psychosis, and medication needs.
• Expanded intensive outpatient therapy serves patients experiencing a mental health crisis that involves substance abuse. The program allows patients to receive therapy with minimal disruption to their daily lives.
• Expanded Partial Hospitalization program helps patients who need more intensive therapy and daily oversight.
• Enhanced Recovery After Surgery program helps surgery patients avoid using opioids for pain.
• Children’s mental health research grant: A $1.5M grant to the Hampton Roads Biomedical Research Consortium funded a collaborative project among Old Dominion University, Eastern Virginia Medical School, and Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters with a goal of improving the mental health and well-being of children, and better understanding how health care disparities affect long-term mental health.