Oregon is turning its system of traditional hospitals, with patients in confined rooms or wards, into malls for recovery, encouraging wide participation in activities that build skills and promote return to a community, writes Dr. Arthur Tolan in the Statesman Journal Tolan is the clinical director of Oregon State Hospital, and describes the system this way:
"a patient may attend a support group meeting in the neighborhood mall and then go to the downtown mall to access a gymnasium or fitness center, library, boutique, canteen, post office, bank, classrooms, music room and art therapy room."
