Providing Short-Term Intensive Treatment in Public Psychiatry

Several programs that have had varying success in providing rapid intervention in the treatment of acutely mentally ill patients have been dcscribed in the last decade (1-3). Such programs often constitute a muchneeded bridge to ongoing psychiatric treatment and services in the public sector for chronic mentally ill patients. This paper describes a short-term intensive psychiatric treatment unit at a general hospital in Philadelphia and provides data on the number of admissions and their disposition in the first 35 months ofthc program’s operation. The unit was a joint effort of the city’s Office ofMental Health and the department of psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College.