Many states have amended or interpreted their civil commitment statutes to allow for involuntary outpatient treatment.

Each year, more than 33 million Americans receive health care for mental or substance-use conditions, or both. Together, mental and substance-use illnesses are the leading cause of death and disability for women, the highest for men ages 15-44, and the second highest for all men. Effective treatments exist, but services are frequently fragmented and, as with general health care, there are barriers that prevent many from receiving these treatments as designed or at all. The consequences of this are seriousâ€"for these individuals and their families; their employers and the workforce; for the nation's economy; as well as the education, welfare, and justice systems. Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use Conditions examines the distinctive characteristics of health care for mental and substance-use conditions, including payment, benefit coverage, and regulatory issues, as well as health care organization and delivery issues. This new volume in the Quality Chasm series puts forth an agenda for improving the quality of this care based on this analysis. Patients and their families, primary health care providers, specialty mental health and substance-use treatment providers, health care organizations, health plans, purchasers of group health care, and all involved in health care for mental and substanceâ€"use conditions will benefit from this guide to achieving better care.

KINDLE BOOK REVIEW, 2014 KINDLE BOOK AWARDS SEMIFINALISTOut of Mind, Out of Sight is a revealing history of the Florida State Hospital at Chattahoochee from construction of its original buildings in 1834 as part of the Chattahoochee Federal Arsenal during the Second Seminole War, to its current role-treating individuals who have been civilly and forensically committed.To put the Florida State Hospital at Chattahoochee in perspective, the story is set against a backdrop of the evolution of institutionalized mental health care both in the U.S. and Florida where new emerging treatments-insulin, Metrozol and electroconvulsive (ECT) shock therapies, as well as lobotomies-became part of patient treatment plans. For years, the Florida State Hospital at Chattahoochee had quite a reputation-most of it bad; but, the institution was not alone. For decades throughout the country, state facilities earned shocking reputations for their inadequate care and mistreatment of the mentally ill. Even more chilling was the incarceration of thousands of men and women who were not mentally ill at all, but due to ignorance and prejudice on the part of the public, medical profession, and court system, were confined for epilepsy, sunbathing nude, smoking, menopause or other "egregious" offenses.Some may wonder why an account of the obscure facility at Chattahoochee is important. The answer lies in its dual role as historic physical facility and evolving mental institution that, when combined, paint a poignant portrait of Florida-its history, its laws and its people; and it is incumbent upon historians to preserve this picture-the good, the bad, and the ugly-for generations to come.

Approximately 4 million U.S. service members took part in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shortly after troops started returning from their deployments, some active-duty service members and veterans began experiencing mental health problems. Given the stressors associated with war, it is not surprising that some service members developed such mental health conditions as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance use disorder. Subsequent epidemiologic studies conducted on military and veteran populations that served in the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq provided scientific evidence that those who fought were in fact being diagnosed with mental illnesses and experiencing mental healthâ€"related outcomesâ€"in particular, suicideâ€"at a higher rate than the general population. This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the quality, capacity, and access to mental health care services for veterans who served in the Armed Forces in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn. It includes an analysis of not only the quality and capacity of mental health care services within the Department of Veterans Affairs, but also barriers faced by patients in utilizing those services.