Security deficiencies in psychiatric units and mental hospitals: what regulators are finding; how hospitals are...

There is probably no other healthcare environment more difficult to manage than a psychiatric facility. So reports Jim House of the Mental Health Association's St. Louis, MO, chapter. Patients--many of them estranged from their families--find it difficult to report complaints ... may not even realize the dangers they are in, he says. Conversely, mentally impaired patients can also voice irrational complaints, and make accusations that turn out to be unfounded ... but only after extensive investigative surveys by state agencies are conducted, and the facility's accreditation and state licensure are put at risk. In this report, we'll present examples of what happened at four facilities when state or federal investigators go in, or the hospital is subjected to negative media coverage.