North Bay Business Journal

SANTA ROSA — The long-awaited opening of a 93-bed psychiatric hospital in Santa Rosa has been pushed back until August due to construction delays, according to the forthcoming hospital’s chief executive officer.

CALIFORNIA — Two recently passed state Assembly bills will require private health insures to cover the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses and developmental disorders such as autism

SANTA ROSA — Absent from Sonoma County for the past three years, acute psychiatric care will return to the region this year when a Southern California-based mental health provider reopens a facility on Fulton Road that housed such services until it was shuttered in 2008.

SONOMA and NAPA — Sonoma Valley Hospital and Napa State Hospital have agreed on terms of a contract that would provide acute care for patients from the state-run psychiatric care facility in Napa, boosting patient volume up by 5 percent to 10 percent at the 83-bed hospital in Sonoma.

SONOMA – Buckelew Employment Services is expanding in Sonoma as a result of growing demand since the Department of Rehabilitation is now referring clients to BES for job placements.

After five years in development under St. Joseph Health System’s wing, the Mental Health Coalition of Sonoma County will officially become its own entity this summer, and officials have already garnered support from nearly every big health care name in the county.