A Computerized Psychiatric Treatment Planning System

The authors describe a computer assisted psychiatric treatment planning system developed at the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans Hospital in Loma Linda, California. Using the File Manager, a VA-developed data base management system, they have developed a comprehensive, flexible system for writing, ret rieving, and analyzing psychiatric treatment plans. The system permits rapid entry and retrieval of required treatment plans and produces a document that is clinically expressive and readable. It stores clinical data that may be analyzedfor research, quality assurance, and management purposes. The authors discuss design philosophy, practical aspects of implementation, staff acceptance, andfuture applications to structured medical records.