Éditorial

Abstract

Because of its sector-based organization and extra-hospital care, public psychiatry has a unique position in healthcare. This paper describes the tools and procedures used to analyze and allocate the resources of the "Centre Hospitalier Alpes-Isère", a hospital serving a catchment population of 530,000 adults. A consensus-based approach was used to validate the selected indicators and included the participation of a geographer. Five levels of resource allocation were identified and classified using a decision tree. At each level, the relevant authorities and criteria were identified as key components of the decision-making process. This paper describes the first three levels of care provision. Focusing on adult care, a comparative assessment of the resources allocated to general psychiatric care and specialist care was conducted, in addition to a comparative assessment of the resources allocated to each of the hospital's four local centers. Geographical accessibility to extramural facilities was also assessed. A study of the characteristics of each general psychiatry clinic revealed significant disparities. The paper highlights several issues: the poor knowledge of psychiatric epidemiological data relating to the population within the catchment area, the difficulty of assessing non-consolidated data or indicators from multiple sources, and the limited and partial nature of geographical data for characterizing and evaluating health care in the hospital's peripheral clinics. Several studies are currently underway to assess the operational effectiveness of the tools and procedures used to analyze and allocate resources.