Commitment patients in a private psychiatric hospital: a pilot program in Tennessee.

This paper surveys the epidemiological characteristics of the first 100 patients committed to a new private psychiatric hospital in Upper East Tennessee, under a pilot program of the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. The number of psychiatric commitments in the region has increased since the opening of a local hospital required, by contract, to accept them. While all commitments were because of a psychiatric diagnosis, many patients might have been treated as outpatients had their illness not been complicated by substance abuse. Greater integration of all levels of psychiatric care would make it possible for such patients to receive care in settings more appropriate to their condition before they experience a crisis requiring inpatient commitment.