Unity Center for Behavioral Health

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Oregon Health & Science University in collaboration with Legacy Health, Kaiser Permanente and Adventist Health has opened the area's first comprehensive care center for people facing a mental health crisis, the Unity Center for Behavioral Health in Portland. Unity Center for Behavioral Health is a national model for providing compassionate mental health care in times of need.

This unprecedented collaboration of four health systems provides a combination of emergency and inpatient services as well as robust transition to outpatient services and embraces the concepts of hope, recovery and resilience. The center serves as an innovative setting to train a wide range of future health care providers.

The center includes 22 beds for adolescents, 80 adult patient beds, a Psychiatric Emergency Service and will also co-locate navigators from organizations that provide community behavioral health services, helping to coordinate continued support to patients after discharge. The Unity Center for Behavioral Health is located on Legacy Health's Holladay Park campus in Northeast Portland.

Unity in the News

The Unity Center for Behavioral Health opened in January of 2017. Since its' inception, Unity has taken a leading position in providing emergency psychiatric care with its unified inpatient and Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES) facility. Chris Farentinos, M.B.A. provides a look into year 1 for Unity and what the future will bring. Please click here to listen to the excellent OHSU Week Podcast with Ms. Farentinos.

Emergency Departments can be a stressful place for patients going through a mental health crisis. The Unity Center for Behavioral Health in Portland is a different kind of hospital. OHSU's Psychiatry Department and Unity leadership speak about how Unity was created and the services it provides in an excellent OHSU Story.
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Join the Team

We are actively recruiting for the following:

Psychiatric Emergency Services Physicians (IRC 51241) –These full or part-time clinical positions for board-eligible/board-certified psychiatrists provide care for patients presenting to the Psychiatric Emergency Service.

Positions include academic appointment and will be employed by Oregon Health & Science University. The division is a fully accredited training program that delivers collaborative, high quality, compassionate, cost effective service that promotes education, research and clinical leadership.

For additional information about these positions, please contact Liz Stevenson J.D., M.P.H. at 503-494-6144 or steveeli@ohsu.edu or apply online at www.ohsu.edu/jobs. 

Our Leadership

Dr. Greg Miller

Greg Miller, M.D., M.B.A., is the Chief Medical Officer of Unity Center for Behavioral Health. Dr. Miller is a member of the faculty in the OHSU Department of Psychiatry under the direction for George Keepers, M.D., chair of the Department.

Dr. Miller comes to Unity Center from the State of New York Office of Mental Health, where he served as medical director for adult services. He is also clinical associate professor at the University of Vermont School of Medicine. After practicing as a psychiatric nurse for four years, Dr. Miller received his medical degree from George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in 1986. After an internship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, he completed his residency in psychiatry at New York Hospital/ Cornell Medical School.

Anne F. Gross, MDAnne F. Gross, M.D. serves as Unity's PES Medical Director. Dr. Gross completed medical school at Emory University and her residency at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and McLean Hospital and her fellowship at MGH. She was also active in residency education at MGH. She joined the faculty at OHSU in July of 2011 as an assistant professor and inpatient psychiatrist within the Department of Psychiatry.  She has been promoted to Associate Professor.  In October 2011 she served as the psychiatry residency training director. Since her arrival, Dr. Gross has been actively teaching and training medical students and residents on the consultation and inpatient services.  She currently leads the Consult Liaison Fellowship at OHSU and is the medical director of the Psychiatric Emergency Service at Unity.

Joseph Thoits MDJoseph Thoits, M.D., serves as the Child and Adolescent Medical Director at Unity. Dr. Thoits is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at OHSU.   Dr. Thoits attended Medical school at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and did his residency in Psychiatry at OHSU, finishing in 2010.  He then completed a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at OHSU in 2012.  Dr. Thoits rejoined the OHSU faculty in 2016, and accepted an invitation to be Medical Director of the Child and Adolescent Unit at Unity in July 2018.

Karina Stone, M.D.Karina Stone, M.D. is the Adult Inpatient Medical Director.  Dr. Stone joined the OHSU faculty in 2016 from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  Originally from Venezuela, Dr. Stone trained at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela, in 2001.  She then did her adult psychiatry residency at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, MA.  She completed a Psychosomatic Medicine Fellowship at Brigham and Women's Hospital/West Roxbury Veterans Administration Hospital at Harvard University in Boston.