 In 1844, Kirkbride helped to found AMSAII, becoming secretary and treasurer, and subsequently its president from 1862 to 1870.Kirkbride pioneered what would be known as the Kirkbride Plan, to improve medical care for the insane, as a standardization for buildings that housed the patients.Kirkbride's influential work, "On the Construction, Organization, and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane with Some Remarks on Insanity and Its Treatment", was published in 1854, and again in 1880.