Systems, stress, and survival: psychiatric hospitals in the 1990s

Presented at the invitation of the President of the National Association of Private Psychiatric Hospitals, January 30, 1991, Marco Island, Florida, this paper is addressed to those whose interest in psychiatric hospitals centers around quality-of-care issues and who today are concerned about the deleterious impact of many forces upon the quality of hospital care. The author begins with comments about systems under stress, then turn to the quality-of-care issues, and end with some speculations about the future of psychiatric hospitals.