Psychiatric liaison with private facilities caring for discharged patients.

Motivated by concern about the fate of psychiatric hospital patients after discharge to the community, a community mental health center decided to send a psychiatrist into the community to establish liaison with private-care facilities and to determine the needs of such discharged patients. As a result of the psychiatrist's efforts, owners of the area's private-care facilities acquired a better understanding of the needs of their residents and learned where they could turn for help in caring for discharge psychiatric patients. A study of one board-and-care facility revealed a marked decrease in the use of the center's emergency service and in the number of hospital admissions after one year of this extended service.