Behavioral Healthcare

Facility Design Showcase

"Achieving Recovery Through Creativity" is the theme that guided the interior design (a collaboration between the previous chief operating officer and SWD Architects), and clients leave their mark on the building with original artwork decorating treatment spaces. To blow off steam, kids in the residential unit have access to a flat screen TV with a collection of movies, foosball and board games, and a piano, and outside are a basketball court, a covered patio (formerly the banks drive-throug...

Publisher

National Issues

(Our current President did recently talk about his past problems with alcohol, but John Schwarzlose, president of the Betty Ford Center, told the Associated Press that it's probably too late in Bush's term for the President to aggressively tackle substance abuse issues.) We can expect the presidential candidates to focus on mental health issues at least on April 16, the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings.

Tools For Transformation

Taking On the Formidable Middle

Transforming the Middle From Michelle's story we can extrapolate ideas to guide us in supporting transformation in our own organizational "middle": * Be clear about what your organizational recovery values are so staff members will know the difference between what they think is "being good" and the organization's very specific recovery values. * Be clear about what typical types of outcomes your organization's service users expect. * Offer training that prepares staff to know the difference b...

Views On Technology

Are You Ready for E-Prescribing?

Nurses should be made aware that organizational efficiency may not immediately rise at the point of transition, but over time e-prescribing can greatly assist them in a variety of areas, including reducing the number of calls from pharmacies; this eliminates the need to transcribe medication orders, and improves risk-management efforts. Conclusion More and more behavioral healthcare providers are adopting e-prescribing as technologic advancements and government regulations drive the healthca...

Perspectives

Finding Solutions to a Gray Future

Many program managers are baby boomers, as are many clinical staff members; for example, the average age of a practicing psychiatrist is about 57.

In Retrospect

The Forgotten Flu

Many feared that influenza would not only disrupt life but also would cause the end of civilization.1 Suicide rates in the United States increased during the pandemic.7 In rural areas, such as in Kentucky, flu victims starved to death because their neighbors were afraid to bring them food.6 In many U.S. cities, social gatherings (e.g., church services and public performances) were suspended and schools were closed.6 Corpses remained uncollected in homes and on streets, and morgues overflowed ...

Community Collaboration

Research Not Just for Research's Sake

Lessons Learned While a number of challenges are involved in conducting research in an agency setting, we have been able to conduct a range of projects in this initial effort, including studies of: * Outpatient engagement * Case management * Staff morale * Incentive pay * Program outcome measurement The table lists a number of lessons we learned in this joint effort that should contribute to the success of this and future collaborations.

Information Technology

The Handwriting Was On the Wall

With necessary treatment information already available in the note, nurses can use the copy-forward function to populate the MTP template, and physicians simply enter problems and objectives to create an MTP, which provides direction for the entire multidisciplinary team.\n For example, the medical director can flag patients who require close monitoring duringashift, and the entire care team is alerted and can quickly provide immediate feedbackon patient progress throughout the shift.

Prescribers Can't Completely Eliminate Paper-Yet

The senators noted that e-prescribing of controlled substances would help law enforcement by allowing them to: * track and monitor prescriptions in real orne; * aggregate data to detect irregular patterns; * create an audit trail of what is sent and by whom; and * receive automatic alerts of abusive behavior.

A Rx to Improve Medication Safety

Wake-up Call Statistics on medication-related errors and adverse drug events (ADEs) are alarming: * According to the Center for Information Technology Leadership, roughly 8 million Americans experience outpatient ADEs each year, roughly 3 million of which are preventable, most by electronic prescribing. * According to the Institute of Medicine, preventable prescription medication errors injure more than 1.5 million Americans and contribute to the deaths of 7,000 each year-the equivalent of on...

Performance Measurement

Learning From Top Performers

The task of managing state hospital bed utilization belongs to the state s community mental health centers, most of which serve as local mental health authorities that approve admissions and coordinate lengths of stay. The Texas Council of Community Mental Health & Mental Retardation Centers, the statewide trade association that works on behalf of the community centers, agreed to sponsor a more formal study to determine if best practices for managing state hospital bed utilization could ...

Organizational Management

The 3cs for Recovery Services

In 1993, Dr. Anthony introduced the concept of a recovery-oriented mental healthcare system? based on the notion of recovery advanced by people with severe mental illnesses2 initially researched by Harding and colleagues.3 A lot of discussion over the past few years has been about the importance of developi ng recovery-oriented practices, bolstered by the President's New Freedom Commission's report that called for services to adopt a recovery vision for the mental healthcare system.4 Mental h...

Drug Testing

Considering the Possibilities of Multiple Specimen Drug Testing

[...] advocates of drug testing are urging the passage of federal legislation to ban the sale and purchase of adulterants and substitute urine specimens (the legislation has been tied up in committees).