Month: July 2016

Joint Commission Snubbed

~ Frank ~ Leave a comment

This past week, for this health care provider, the unthinkable happened: a hospital rebelled,  and refused further accreditation review by the long-dominant and supremely influential arbiter of hospitals and their national rankings. The Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is, as far as I know, an independent organization that has been around since before I ever dreamed of becoming a physician. To say any more about its history, development, and evolution would reveal my ignorance unless I scurried off during the writing of this post and did some hours of Internet search engine based research…

The story line is that the state of South Dakota has taken the unprecedented stand of declining having the Joint Commission to review and help the state reinstate the accreditation for the state psychiatric hospital of South Dakota! Continue reading →

Shrink Population is Shrinking

~ Frank ~ Leave a comment

In a not so surprising but still distressing article in Health Affairs, Jul 2016, Vol. 35, No. 7, pp. 1271-1277 entitled: “Population Of US Practicing Psychiatrists Declined, 2003–13, Which May Help Explain Poor Access To Mental Health Care,” discussed the long-standing decrease in the population of psychiatrists in the USA. This has been one of those long predicted results of issues that started in the 1980’s that were decried by legions of psychiatrists at all levels of psychiatric “guild” organizations from the American Psychiatric Association to the Amercian Academy of Psychiatrists, the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and others. This all fell on deaf ears and in the Reagan era of deregulation, and prejudicial cutting off funding especially for the “social” professions [read the professions such as college professors, and mental health types, all viewed with varying degrees of suspicion, after all, “social” is close to “socialism” “right here in River City” to utilize the wholesome hysteria of the movie “The Music Man,” of decades ago].

Continue reading →