Scheduled brief admissions: patient "tuneups".

1. Incorporating brief, planned admissions into the treatment plan of chronically mentally disabled patients has demonstrated positive outcomes related to health care services, as well as to the patients' perceptions of their own health status. 2. A comparison of the "Tuneup" program before and since its inception showed that, while the number of patient hospitalizations increased, the patients' length of stay, amount of unplanned hospitalizations, and cost decreased significantly during this period. 3. The chronically mentally ill are a population at risk for a variety of hardships, including rehospitalization, social isolation, homelessness, and even death. Psychiatric nurses who understand the needs of these persons can serve as a vital force in mental health care reform.

Nursing shortage. Catalyst for administrative/educational partnership.

A nurse administrator and a nurse educator, already linked in collaborative efforts, developed a creative response to their concerns of recruitment and retention of nursing staff and nursing students. The result was a program of academically sound registered nursing education for a specific full-time employed population. This link between service and education benefitted the health care agency by recruiting and retaining employees, the college by increasing enrollments in the nursing program, and the employees by providing convenient, low cost, accessible education. The phases of assessing, planning, implementing, and evaluating the on-site RN program are reported, and the information of interest and use to other persons in similar situations is presented.