Background: Patients with serious mental illness (SMI; e.g., psychotic disorders and major
mood disorders) die earlier, have more medical illnesses, and receive worse medical care than
those in the general population.."75 Patients with SMI are losing an astonishing
number of years of life to preventable and treatable
medical illnesses. The reasons for this mortality gap are
numerous and interrelated and include patient-, provider-, and system-level factors. Solutions to the problem
will require attention to all these areas, but provider
responsibility and strategies aimed at the integration of
medical and psychiatric care hold immediate promise
for correcting the health and healthcare disparities faced
by this vulnerable and neglected population. Viron and Stern
Psychosomatics 51:6, November-December 2010 http://psy.psychiatryonline.org 463
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61....