Practical strategies for assessing and stabilizing bipolar patients in urgent situations.

For patients with bipolar disorder in urgent situations, psychiatric and nonpsychiatric clinicians should employ practical approaches to achieve optimum outcomes and ensure safe and rapid reduction of symptoms, such as considering the treatment setting, clinician-patient relationship, and the severity of the patient's symptoms. Because biological, psychological, and social factors affect both the development and the treatment of acute bipolar states, treatment should address each factor to manage the illness.

A quality improvement process for implementing the Texas algorithm for schizophrenia in Ohio.

Medication algorithms developed in Texas are being implemented in a number of states in the United States and internationally. This report describes a quality improvement process adapted from the Texas Medication Algorithm Project that was used to implement the Texas algorithm for schizophrenia in Ohio. A total of 38 physicians were surveyed about their perceptions of barriers to implementation of the guidelines.