Telepsychiatry brings emergency mental health care to rural areas
May 30, 2014
A recent study in North Carolina concludes that telepsychiatry – a consultation via videoconference between a patient and a mental health professional – is showing some success in meeting the state’s shortage of emergency mental health care providers. Patients can now be connected in the emergency department to a psychiatrist working remotely, using a secure teleconferencing system. The session is a one-time consultation, concluding most often with a mental health referral for follow-up care, or sometimes with a determination that the patient should be admitted. Sy Atezaz Saeed, who chairs the Department of Psychiatric Medicine at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University and is a participating clinician, said that the interactions are very much like face-to-face meetings. “When you ask patients about this experience, most of them will tell you that after a few minutes of some hesitation, they even forget that they are talking to the doctor via this monitor,” he said.
Spark Extra! Read the report: Telepsychiatry in North Carolina: Mental Health Care Comes to You by the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research.