It can be very difficult to find available inpatient psychiatric beds in California, leaving many teens or adults with acute psychiatric conditions waiting in hospital emergency rooms until a bed opens up – a problem shared by the other 49 states.
A bill in the California Assembly, backed by the California Psychiatric Association and the Steinberg Institute, a mental health policy organization, hopes to make the process easier by devising an online registry that collects and displays information so medical providers can find available psychiatric beds, Jenny Gold reported in an article published by Kaiser Health News.
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However, the California Hospital Association doesn’t approve of the idea, saying that finding the right place for a psychiatric patient is a more complex process and such a registry could actually keep patients from getting the most appropriate treatment.
Read the whole article at http://tinyurl.com/jmvgz3g.