Upgrading Psychopharmacology in a Private Psychiatric Hospital

We believe that the improvement in drug management of depressive disorder, and the overall improvement of psychopharmacologic practice, can be attributed to the attention the hospital gave to psychopharmacology. Kass and colleagues (10) have also reported improvements in psychopharmacologic practices achieved in their hospital setting by the use of similar internal auditing and teaching conferences. Thus it appears that the use of internal auditing systems, in conjunction with inservice training and one-to-one consultations, may be useful in many psychiatnic settings.

The growth of the field of psychopharmacology has created a considerable need to upgrade training for practicing clinicians who may be generally misinformed about the use of psychotropic medications. The development of a section on psychopharmacology by the hospital provided a creative and acceptable approach to upgrading the level of psychopharmacologic knowledge of the busy clinician. We suggest that use of this approach in other hospital settings might also upgrade the level of medication management.