Moving psychiatric patients to a new hospital.

The focus of this article is on the process used to inform, prepare, and actually move (without incident) 129 psychiatric patients to a new hospital. Various strategies to prepare patients for and engage them in the move are detailed, including discussions with patients about various aspects of the move during daily morning life management meetings, surveys, tours of and luncheons at the new hospital, use of information packets with photographs of and captions describing the new hospital units, elicitation of input from and education of family members to provide support for the move, as well as individualized counseling and support of patients by staff.

Reducing patient restraints: a pilot approach using clinical case review.

Purpose: This study aims to reduce the incidents of restraints by applying a nontraditional consultation process in which a university-based team focused on patient consultations to collect data on treatment interventions and milieu approaches and conditions, as well as staff interactions.

Conclusions: The efforts resulted in restraint reduction from 36 episodes per month to 0 episodes per month as well as precipitating a change in unit climate and care approaches on a specialized unit for patients with developmental disabilities and mental illness.

Practice Implications: Reducing the use of restraints involving multiple restraint incident patients is possible with a team-based approach and a specific intervention plan.