Triumphs and challenges of transforming a state psychiatric hospital in Georgia

The recovery model of mental health has gained momentum in the last three decades as a guiding philosophy for the transformation of traditional mental health institutions into programmes that are more responsive to consumer needs and choices. Recovery has served as a framework for our ongoing efforts to transform a psychiatric institution into a model programme for similar organizations in the state of Georgia. We have taken several significant steps that include ongoing consultation with a state-appointed consultant, a partnership with an academic psychiatry department that espoused the recovery philosophy, transformation of medication-focused treatment teams into multidisciplinary recovery teams and proliferation of evidence-based rehabilitative interventions as a platform for medication management. The Medical College of Georgia Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior had created the Georgia Recovery-based Educational Approach to Treatment (Project). In the context of its partnership with state psychiatric hospital, the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior made its recovery-based training curriculum available to the state hospital's clinical and support staff. As evident in our own experience, recovery-based systems transformation is fraught with challenges, but it also offers clinicians and clinical administrators useful guidelines for successful implementation of recovery framework within state psychiatric institutions.

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