Linking quality assurance and quality of care.

Since the introduction of the problem-oriented record into hospital work nearly 30 years ago, psychiatry has struggled to adapt it to the complex bio-psycho-social determinants of illness and therapeutics. This struggle has been especially difficult with the seriously and persistently ill patient who requires more than a minimal hospital stay. Justification of the work with the longer-stay patient has now come under extreme pressure from utilization review, third-party payors and quality assurance, but hospital psychiatrists continue to have the same difficulties with documentation. Based on two years of chart review with clinical teams, principles of psychosocial rehabilitation and a dynamically oriented philosophy of inpatient treatment for the long-term patient, this presentation demonstrates one method for linking problems and goals with length of stay, quality assurance behaviors with quality of care, and integration of the multidisciplinary team into the entire process.