Regulation and accreditation: the pros and cons for psychiatric facilities.

Psychiatric hospitals must be regulated, and someone must write the rules, says the author. But the rules of such agencies as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals and Medicare are rarely subjected to rigorous testing, either for efficacy or for cost-effectiveness. The author discusses the problems of expense, inconsistency, and excessive documentation created by the regulatory process, plus positive aspects such as the stimulus for improvement. One urgent need, he believes, is to reconcile more closely the views of the cost-cutters and the standard-setters before they inflict irreparable damage on some segments of the hospital system.