In another shakeup of Northwest Indiana’s hospital landscape, Franciscan Alliance announced Thursday that its Dyer campus will be shifting its focus toward behavioral health over the next three years.

For nonbehavioral health patients, inpatient, emergency and surgical services will move from Dyer to Franciscan’s Munster campus in late 2027, according to an emailed statement. The ER will shift to a new Franciscan ExpressCare for patients needing critical medical care and an emergency intake department specifically for behavioral health.

All current behavioral health services will remain on the Dyer campus, while inpatient rehabilitation will also move from Dyer to a new rehabilitation facility on the Munster campus around the same time.Construction cranes are currently visible at Franciscan’s Munster campus as Tonn and Blank Construction are turning the current three-story building into six floors and constructing an additional five-story building. Two new Franciscan ExpressCare locations are set to open in St. John and Valparaiso in 2026.

When the transition is complete, Franciscan is considering expanding its current 92-bed inpatient behavioral health unit and the addition of behavioral health services.

Franciscan Alliance’s health care system has undergone a number of changes in the past few years. Franciscan closed inpatient services and the emergency room at its Hammond campus in December 2022 due to decreasing patient volume after more than a century in the city. It opened a new hospital campus along Interstate 65 and U.S. 231 in Crown Point in January 2024, which turned its former Main Street location into an outpatient center.

Franciscan said current staff members are expected to remain active in their roles at the Dyer or Munster campuses and patients will be notified of any department and office moves before the transition in 2027.

“Surrounding our patients with love, respect and dignity is fundamental to our Franciscan values,” Franciscan Alliance Chairwoman of the Board Sister M. Aline Shultz, OSF said.

“We know that providing patients experiencing a behavioral health emergency or requiring inpatient treatment with the compassionate care they need, when and where they need it, leads to better outcomes not only for them and their families, but the community at large. We are thankful for this opportunity to expand our health care ministry’s impact with this much-needed plan.”

The transition to a behavioral health campus was approved by the Franciscan Alliance Board of Trustees. In its release, Franciscan cited the growing need for behavioral health care while supporting its regional approach to health care.

The release cited statistics from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health showing a gap between the number of Indiana residents needing services and those who actually receive them — more than 22% of Indiana adults have mental illness and more than 27% of young adults have mental illness, yet only 17% received mental health services in the past year.

According to statistics from the Indiana Department of Health, there were 1,136 suicides occurred in 2022, with 70 in Lake County and 24 in Porter County.

Particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for mental health services has increased but patients of all ages are unable to access care.

“We look forward to continuing our long-standing presence serving Dyer, Munster and the Region with these expanded services and to continuing Christ’s ministry in our Franciscan tradition,” Franciscan Health Dyer, Munster and Michigan City President and CEO Dean Mazzoni said.