Patterns of referral for psychiatric consultation at a VA Medical Center.

Abstract

Psychiatric consultation and liaison services at Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals are likely to become more important in the coming years as the VA population grows older and more veterans with psychiatric problems need medical treatment. The VA already manages more than 10 percent of the psychiatric beds in the United States (1), and psychiatric beds constitute 32 percent of all the beds in the VA system (2). One study found that 64 percent of veterans seeking psychiatric care at a VA hospital had at least one prior psychiatric admission (3). Despite the extensiveness of the VA’s psychiatric program and the likelihood that demand for psychiatric consultation and liaison services at VA hospitals will increase, a review of the literature indicates that consultation and liaison referral patterns in the VA system have not been examined. This paper reviews requests for psychiatric consultation at the VA Medical Center in Louisville over a two-yea penod. The medical center is a 369bed teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Louisville School of Medicine.