Am J Psychiatry 1988; 145:1435-1437
Copyright © 1988 by American Psychiatric Association
Treatment opportunities on a consultation/liaison service
JS Lyons, JS Hammer, DB Larson, J Petraitis and JJ Strain
Psychiatric Consultation/Liaison Service, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL 60611.
The amount of time consultation psychiatrists in a large metropolitan
teaching hospital spent providing direct services was studied over 1,104
consecutive consultation cases. Although the majority of cases required
less than 5 hours of psychiatric time apiece, more than 10% of these cases
each received more than 10 hours of direct services. This finding has
important implications for understanding the types of psychiatric services
provided to hospitalized medical/surgical patients.
