The Institute of Medicine (IOM) released an important report on behavioral healthcare on November 1,2005, titled Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use Conditions. Yet as the report's title reflects, the committee that drafted the report abandoned the term "behavioral healthcare." The committee decided to use the acronym "M/SU" to refer to "mental and substance use" throughout the report. Whether or not M/SU becomes the commonly accepted designation, many will welcome the suggested elimination of a term that consumers rarely understand.
The M/SU report is essentially a long overdue follow-up to the IOM's 2001 report titled Crossing the Quality ...