From Undark Magazine: A new app, Psych Ward Reviews, gathers anonymous reviews of patients’ experiences with inpatient treatment at public and private psychiatric and general hospitals. According to patient advocates, this service is badly needed, as patients’ experiences with the mental health system have long been ignored by professionals and policymakers.
“‘Unfortunately, inpatient psychiatric units appear to be faltering in both safety and developing a patient-centered orientation of care,’ wrote Kathleen R. Delaney, professor at the department of community, systems and mental health nursing at Rush University, in a research paper on measuring patient and staff satisfaction.
One reason for this lag may be that some medical professionals are hesitant to trust the opinions of patients with mental illness. ‘There’s the idea that patients don’t have insight, or don’t know what they need,’ said Morgan Shields, who has researched quality of care at psychiatric inpatient facilities with Rosenthal and is a Rappaport Public Policy Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. ‘Because of the nature of their condition, there’s a distrust in their opinions,’ she added.”
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