Quality Improvement Approach to Increasing Psychiatric Rehabilitation in the Inpatient Setting

This clinical practice improvement project (CPIP) sought to increase the rate of referrals to psychiatric rehabilitation units among inpatients on a 44-bed men’s ward at the Institute of Mental Health, Singapore. Three root causes of low referral rates were targeted for intervention, and three plan-do-study-act cycles were conducted to address these causes. Interrupted time-series analysis was used to assess the impact of the interventions. Addressing these causes significantly and sustainably improved the rate of referral. The rate of rehabilitation program attrition did not worsen because of the increased number of referrals. These findings indicate that CPIPs can significantly improve processes.