title: Tele-mental health brings expert input to EPs, speeds treatment.
abstract: Faced with rising demand from patients with mental health problems, Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael, CA, is using telemedicine to connect many of these patients with psychiatrists. With input from the psychiatrists, emergency physicians feel more comfortable initiating treatment for these patients, many of whom can then be discharged with instructions to pursue outpatient follow-up. Further, the expert consults help physicians determine whether patients who have been placed on involuntary holds require inpatient treatment or can be safely treated and discharged. The technology required for the remote sessions is contained on robots that can move from room to room in the ED. The ED targets two groups of patients for tele-mental health visits: patients who present with concerns that the emergency physicians do not feel comfortable treating without input from psychiatrists, and patients who have been in the ED for an extended period of time, and it is clear that they will not be transported to an inpatient psychiatric facility any time soon. Currently, 25%-30% of the mental health patients who present to the ED are being touched by the remote psychiatrists; however, administrators are looking to increase that percentage to 50%-75%. They are also interested in potentially conducting regular rounds of the mental health patients with the remote psychiatrists.
mesh_terms: D002140:California; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D019114:Remote Consultation; D017216:Telemedicine