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Biomedical subjects

S Moltzen

Publications and source records attributed to S Moltzen.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1989

Medical evaluation of psychiatric patients. I. Results in a state mental health system.

Thorough medical evaluation of 529 patients drawn from eight program categories in California's public mental health system revealed active, important physical disease in 200 patients who had 291 diseases. Fourteen percent of the patients had diseases known to themselves but not to the mental health system, and 12% of the patients had diseases newly detected by the study team. We estimate that of the more than 300,000 patients treated in the California public mental health system in fiscal year 1983 to 1984, 45% had an active, important physical disease. The mental health system had recognized only 47% of study patients' physical diseases, including 32 of 38 diseases causing a mental disorder and 23 of 51 diseases exacerbating a mental disorder. Patients treated in public sector mental health facilities should receive careful medical evaluations.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

A method for comparing two systems of acute 24-hour psychiatric care.

A quasi-experimental method was developed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of a public system of 24-hour acute psychiatric care in Santa Clara County, California, before and after a new treatment setting was introduced. The original system relied on a 54-bed psychiatric unit in a county general hospital; the new system consisted of a 20-bed unit in the general hospital plus a 45-bed nonhospital psychiatric health facility. The study demonstrated that the per diem cost of the psychiatric health facility was approximately 60 percent that of the original general hospital unit, but the average difference in cost per episode between the two systems was only about +25, primarily due to longer lengths of stay in the new system. In addition, patients treated in the new, combined system appeared sicker at discharge than those treated in the old system. The findings suggest the importance of simultaneously evaluating both cost and treatment effectiveness to make sure that one element does not dominate program direction at the expense of the other.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1986

The psychiatric health facility: an alternative for acute inpatient treatment in a nonhospital setting.

The psychiatric health facility (PHF) is a new kind of California health facility licensed for psychiatric inpatient treatment. PHFs provide acute short-term treatment in nonhospital settings that have more flexible facility and staffing requirements than do hospitals. The enabling legislation states that the average per diem cost should be approximately 60 percent of the cost of similar services provided in a general hospital. In late 1985 one private and 16 public PHFs were operating in California. The number of applicants wishing to open private-sector PHFs continue to increase, partly due to recently mandated insurance coverage for the facilities. Data on existing PHFs show that the characteristics of patients in PHFs and general hospitals are similar, and that state hospital utilization for counties using PHFs is lower than for non-PHF counties.

Acute Disease↗