December 1, 2025
Moving Across the Country? Here’s How to Plan
Moving across the country is exciting: a new job, a new city, a new chapter. But it’s also a challenge that tests your planning skills (an...
The United States is facing a mental health crisis, which was worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Problems like substance abuse, anxiety, and depression are overwhelming hospitals, clinics, and other health systems, and these facilities are failing to keep up. But the crisis isn’t just clinical; it’s spatial.
The growing number of mental health patients is pushing limits, reshaping healthcare in real time, and it’s forcing healthcare leaders to become flexible and to adapt and evolve quickly. They’re converting vacant wings into therapy spaces and launching full-scale facility expansions under tight deadlines. That also means taking a new approach to planning, staffing, and furnishing these spaces.
When healthcare facilities and systems partner with CORT, this is no longer a problem. Our flexible, scalable Furniture-as-a-Service solutions ensure you adapt at the speed of care.
Behavioral health needs are rising at a pace the U.S. healthcare system was never built to absorb. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), every age group in the country, especially young people, is experiencing a mental health crisis. One in three high school students report poor mental health. Doctors diagnose one in five adults with some type of depression, and four in five adults don’t feel like they get the mental health support they need.
According to the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) “Costs of Caring” report for 2025, behavioral health demand is the most unsustainable challenge that U.S. hospitals face right now. This puts pressure on emergency rooms and other facilities that just don’t have the space for mental health patients, especially those who require inpatient care. As the report notes, this surge in demand—combined with workforce shortages and limited capacity—has left hospitals overwhelmed, creating an urgent need to rethink and reconfigure existing infrastructure.
This growing strain on hospitals has sparked a nationwide push to find creative solutions—and one of the most promising strategies is repurposing existing facilities. In Bexar County, Texas—where San Antonio is located—officials want to convert old, outdated, and unused medical buildings into inpatient psychiatric facilities to meet the rising demand for mental health treatment. Their goal is to ease overcrowding and provide more access to care. The county is asking for $60 million from the state of Texas.
Meanwhile, New York City’s Lenox Hill Hospital is expanding its outpatient mental health services to accommodate up to 30,000 visits annually. The project will cost approximately $2 billion.
These are just two examples of many. Adaptability is the new currency in healthcare design, with systems prioritizing speed, safety, and flexibility. Hospitals are converting entire wings, clinics, and even old administration into centers for mental health treatment.
This trend reflects a broader industry shift toward designing spaces that can evolve as needs change. It’s not just about adding beds—it’s about creating environments that prioritize safety, privacy, and therapeutic care while remaining adaptable. Deloitte’s 2025 Global Health Care Outlook reinforces this point, noting that flexibility in physical space is now a top priority as leaders reimagine care delivery, particularly in high-demand areas like behavioral health.
Construction isn’t the only essential piece of the puzzle, however. The furnishings inside these buildings matter just as much as the walls that enclose the space. Each piece must meet both therapeutic and safety requirements, including comfort, calm colors, and flexible design. Even temporary or transitional spaces still need thoughtful, durable setups.
But as the projects mentioned above imply, capital is tight. New furnishings for healthcare facilities can be expensive, and at the rate things are changing in the industry, they can become outdated quickly. That’s why many healthcare systems are choosing to rent furniture rather than make costly purchases that limit adaptability in the future.
As hospitals adopt hybrid models for behavioral health, the need for furniture that can support both clinical care and digital interaction has never been greater. Making the wrong choice can sabotage behavioral health treatment environments. Every piece you select should add:
This is where CORT’s Furniture-as-a-Service model offers a critical advantage. While repurposing and expansion projects help healthcare systems gain some ground in combating the country’s mental health crisis, they’re expensive and time-consuming. By providing scalable, safe, and customizable solutions, CORT enables hospitals to respond to urgent needs without the delays of capital procurement.
When you partner with us, you get high-quality solutions for healthcare environments delivered quickly. Options are scalable and safety-minded, and you can customize them to reflect your facility’s behavioral health best practices. Our Furniture-as-a-Service (FaaS) model even reduces strain on your team by handling all of the logistics, from delivery to setup to removal when you’re finished with the furniture or ready to move on to something else. We can even handle fast-turnaround projects.
Products like our Mitchell Sofa or Talia Chair provide the soft comfort and calming textures required of mental health spaces. We don’t just offer furniture. Dress your chairs and sofas up with fixtures like the Sandler Pillow Pack. Its earth tones add more comfort and tranquility to your seating.
CORT’s flexibility allows you to respond to urgent care needs without the delay and cost of capital procurement, enabling leaders, facilities managers, and operations directors to focus on patients and not logistics.
As behavioral health challenges escalate, healthcare leaders must think beyond clinical protocols and consider the complete care environment, including the physical spaces patients and staff interact with every day.
Flexible, therapeutic, and responsive design is a necessity. As behavioral health becomes a central pillar of whole-person care, the future of healthcare design will depend on partners who can deliver adaptable, therapeutic environments, both at scale and on demand. The healthcare industry is changing. Change with it, with CORT.
