Factors in the Quality of Patient Evaluations in General Hospital Psychiatric Emergency Services

the usefulness of a three-perspec-tive model for determining the quality ofevaluations in psychiatric emergency services. The model was used to evaluate the hypothesis that the provision of high-quality care in emergency services is primarily influenced by service objectives re-lated to patients ’ clinical charac-teristics rather than by institu-tional constraints, such as work-load or physicalfacilities, or by so-cial biases, such as clinicians ’ atti-tudes towardpatients or perceptions ofcommunity expectations. Met/xxls: The evaluations of 683 persons as-sessed in nine California publicfa-cilities were independently observed. Multivariate techniques were used to test the relative importance ofpa-tients ’ clinicalcbaracteristics, possi-ble sources ofsocial bias among dini-cians, and institutional constraints in influencing three quality-of-care dimensions: technical quality, the art of patient care, and optimum inrestment of time. Results: The All authors except Dr. Goldfinger are affiliated with the Menta