[Integrated care in community psychiatric medicine]

A common factor underlying the current issues in psychiatric medicine is the lack of visualization of the process of medical practice. An approach to visualization of this process facilitates solving the problems faced in this field. Psychiatric care often comes into effect based on the cooperation of a number of institutions and professions, rather than being completed within a single institution. To visualize the process of psychiatric care, it is important to establish face-to-face relationships between patients and psychiatrists, introduce the care system in which two doctors share the responsibility of managing a single patient, and formulate an integrated care pathway in the community. Although many consider the clinical pathway concept to be unsuitable for psychiatric practice, it is possible to introduce a community cooperation care pathway into psychiatric practice if consideration is first given to several significant issues. Community cooperation activities in the field of psychiatric care including the integrated care pathway help to harmonize the efforts of supporters, patients, and families, and increase the overall sense of security. It is also expected that such activities will allow us to obtain useful indices for assessing the quality of care.