Characteristics of Communities Associated with Increased Utilization of State Hospitals

S.A. Larocco, R.J. Bonnie
December 2017

PRODUCED BY THE
Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.

Over the past three years, temporary detention order (TDO) admissions to state psychiatric hospitals have been on the rise in Virginia. This removes patients from their communities and creates unsafe conditions as state hospital utilization rises well above 90%. A previous report has identified some of the important events associated with the increase in the number of TDOs across the Commonwealth since 20141. The current report focuses on increases in TDO admissions to state hospitals. Much of the increase in TDOs to state hospitals is driven by increases in TDOs in general, especially in the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute (MHI), Western State and Catawba catchment areas. There was, nonetheless, a substantial part of the increase attributable to changes in private hospital acceptance of patients under a TDO, especially in the Central State and Southwestern MHI catchment Areas.