Continuous care teams in intensive outpatient treatment of chronic mentally ill patients.

A continuous care team provides ongoing treatment for chronic mentally ill patients at a community mental health center in an inner-city area. The team, which consists of a nurse-social worker, a psychiatrist, four clinicians, and an addictions counselor, uses aggressive outreach and remains in charge of treatment while the patient is hospitalized. Preliminary outcomes for 32 of 39 patients treated during the first 15 months of the program included increased rates of treatment compliance, decreased frequency of crises, and decreased frequency and duration of hospitalization. However, substance abuse continued to be a problem and was negatively correlated with improvement.