Hospital network Hackensack Meridian Health is going ahead with the early stages of opening a new addiction treatment center nestled in the Ramapo Mountains in Bergen County.

Under the first phase of opening announced on Feb. 24, the Retreat & Recovery at Ramapo Valley will begin offering outpatient services at its 40-acre campus in Mahwah. HMH officials expect to bring a 90-bed inpatient facility and detox services center online in 2022.

“We know that more people are struggling with mental health issues and addiction,” HMH Chief Executive Officer Bob Garrett said in a Feb. 24 statement.

“What happened over time and over the last year is the pandemic occurred and the crisis grew even more significantly,” he added in a phone interview that day.

The goal of the new center, according to Don Parker, the CEO for the HMH Carrier Clinic, is to provide an “integration of traditional therapy, evidence-based practice and integrative medicine to provide a modern, comprehensive approach to individualized care.”

“The Retreat & Recovery at Ramapo Valley is proud to offer co-occurring services in addition to medicated assisted treatment under the guidance of our medical director and licensed professionals,” continued Parker, who heads Hackensack Meridian’s behavioral health services.

It relies on integrated medicine and health and wellness treatments like mindfulness techniques, on top of medical intervention, he said.

There have been four patients so far taking part in the outpatient treatment, with the expectation of serving roughly 50 patients a day, Parker said in a phone interview alongside Garrett. The shift to a heavy emphasis on telemedicine amid the pandemic was a sort of blessing, Parker suggested.

With uncertainty over how in-demand the center might be, a shift to individual and group treatments done remotely means the center has the potential to accommodate a larger caseload.

For now, patients are relying on a hybrid model, which has been employed at schools, workplaces and health care settings across the nation as part of a large-scale physical distancing effort.

“The virtual technology not only greatly expands access to care, but expands our capacity to deliver care,” Garrett added. “It really has a tremendous advantage.”

Editor’s Note: This article was updated on Feb. 24, 2021, at 1:29 p.m. to include specific quotes from HMH Chief Executive Officer Bob Garrett after a phone interview.