miscellany: Improving Inpatient Psychiatric Treatment in an Era of Managed Care

Contributors to this sourcebook are members of a research team that examined treatment practices in 103 general hospitals with psychiatric units in New York State; they concentrated on the care of Medicaid patients with schizophrenia. The team also made site visits to 53 units, and at four hospitals they studied the effect of treatment approaches on postdischarge patient functioning. Seven dimensions of inpatient practice were measured. The monograph focuses on findings related to the four dimensions the team found to be the most problematic: medication education and management, family involvement, treatment of comorbid substance use disorders, and linkage to external postdischarge services. The sourcebook is based on the premise that given the changing case mix now and in the future, general hospital inpatient psychiatry must adopt more of a long-term treatment orientation.