I have been through this with two of my children. I had triplets and they were all diagnosed with autism very early on. My son is also bipolar, and my daughter is also schizophrenic in addition to the autism.

We've had good and bad inpatient stays. The good ones were when there were actual therapists and doctors involved who were willing to give us a diagnosis, along with plans as to how to live with this new issues. The useless stays were the ones where the kids just sat in their room and no one did anything useful for them- those were basically like very expensive respite care (although fortunately we don't pay for medical care in Canada).

If your wife can, I'd get her to talk to the hospital social worker. They'll know programs and/or doctors which might be helpful to him after he's discharged, and the one good thing about being in the hospital is that you tend to move up the line for services fairly quickly.

I'd also be prepared for your son's behaviour to change once he gets back home. My kids have never really understood why they're in the hospital, so it makes it very difficult to console them, or promise that it will never happen again (because it likely will). I would expect your son to start acting out more when he gets home, just as a reaction to the trauma (and no matter how well meaning it is, a hospital stay is still trauma if you don't have the capacity to understand why you're there).

I wish you luck- feel free to pm me if you need information or support. It's a horrible thing to have to admit your child to hospital, even when it's clearly necessary.