NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn is expanding its behavioral health services with the opening of a Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program (CPEP), designed to increase access to care for patients experiencing psychiatric emergencies.

The new 2,700-square-foot unit, located next to the hospital’s emergency department, provides space for patients to receive psychiatric assessments, treatment, and observation. The CPEP has more than a dozen patient care positions, including extended observation beds, individual patient rooms, an observation area, and a calming room, as well as an interview room, group therapy area, patient showers, and clinical support spaces. Patients requiring additional psychiatric care may be admitted to the hospital’s 35-bed inpatient unit.

As part of the CPEP, the mobile crisis team will have a new suite in the Augustana building directly across the street from the hospital. Serving mainly as a base for the team, the suite will feature a dedicated workroom and two consultation rooms. The team primarily works in the community, providing assessments and short-term management for people experiencing severe behavioral health crises. Patients may also visit the suite for supportive counseling. These services complement the recently opened behavioral health clinic at the Augustana Family Health Center at NYU Langone, which includes 20 individual offices for outpatient mental health care and is expected to serve approximately 1,200 patients annually.

Together, the CPEP, inpatient unit, and mobile crisis team will support patients across emergency, inpatient, and community settings and help connect them with appropriate ongoing treatment.

“This necessary expansion allows us to better meet the needs of our patients experiencing a behavioral health crisis by providing a dedicated environment designed specifically for psychiatric emergency care,” said Bret J. Rudy, MD, executive vice president and chief of hospital operations at NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn. “By expanding our capacity within the hospital and strengthening our services in the community, we’re creating more ways to connect patients with the right level of care when and where they need it.”

The investment is part of NYU Langone Health’s broader efforts to strengthen behavioral health services throughout Brooklyn, including expanding access to care and developing the workforce needed to deliver psychiatric care in community settings.

The Sunset Park–based Family Health Centers at NYU Langone Psychiatry Residency program, which recently graduated its inaugural class of three residents, is a component of that effort. Established through the federal Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Program, the four-year residency prepares psychiatrists for careers in community-based behavioral health. Residents train at a federally qualified health center, receive inpatient training at NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn, and rotate through schools, shelters, NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, and other community settings.

W. Gordon Frankle, MD, MBA, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at NYU Langone, helped establish the residency program and has been closely involved in its growth since its inception.

“Our residency gives physicians firsthand experience caring for patients in a range of settings, from health centers and schools to shelters and hospitals,” said Dr. Frankle. “With our inaugural class now graduated, we are preparing psychiatrists to deliver care that reflects the needs of the diverse communities we serve.”

Among the program’s first graduates is Shiyu Chen, MD, who will remain with the Family Health Centers as an attending psychiatrist, providing care at Sunset Terrace and through NYU Langone’s Community Medicine Program in Manhattan, which serves individuals living in supportive housing.

“I chose the residency program because of who we serve,” said Dr. Chen. “Sunset Park is incredibly diverse, with many immigrant families and patients who speak a variety of languages. As someone originally from China and fluent in Mandarin, I wanted the opportunity to provide psychiatric care in both English and Mandarin while caring for a community that truly needs it.”

Dr. Chen hopes to expand access to culturally responsive psychiatric care for Brooklyn’s immigrant communities.

Across the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone network, more than 165,000 mental health visits are provided annually, with the number of behavioral health encounters more than doubling over the past 10 years. Behavioral health services also extend into 36 schools and shelters, helping reach patients beyond traditional healthcare settings.

About NYU Langone Health

NYU Langone Health is a fully integrated health system that consistently achieves the best patient outcomes through a rigorous focus on quality that has resulted in some of the lowest mortality rates in the nation. Vizient Inc. has ranked NYU Langone No. 1 out of 122 comprehensive academic medical centers across the nation five years in a row, and it continues to have the most No. 1– and top 10–ranked specialties among medical centers in the United States, according to U.S. News & World Report. NYU Langone offers a comprehensive range of medical services with one high standard of care across seven inpatient locations, its Perlmutter Cancer Center, and more than 400 outpatient locations in the New York City area and Florida. The system also includes two tuition-free medical schools, in Manhattan and on Long Island, and a vast research enterprise.

Media Contact

Gabrielle Messina
Phone: 929-909-6213
Gabrielle.Messina@NYULangone.org