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Telepsychiatry for Residential or Partial Programs Residential treatment centers have turned to InSight as a way to address their often limited but important psychiatric needs. The comprehensive care that these facilities provide often includes a requirement for the availability of a psychiatrist for medical leadership and the direct evaluation and treatment of residents. Further, these programs often require a particular specialty of psychiatry such as child and adolescent certification or a specialty in addictions and substance abuse. The national trend to lower the size of these programs and offer centers that are more home-oriented, has left many residential programs in the difficult position of arranging for a small number of hours of psychiatry from a limited pool of available psychiatrists.Through telepsychiatry, despite distance and time, InSight now offers residential programs access to the right psychiatrist in increments of time that make sense practically and economically to the program. By offering access to specialists for scheduled blocks of time or for crisis intervention as needed, InSight and its team of telepsychiatrists provide an important augmentation to the onsite treatment teams within these residential treatment programs. InSight’s psychiatric services to hospital-based residential treatment programs allow residents to gain access to psychiatric specialists 24/7/365. Employed psychiatrists or psychiatric nurse practitioners under the leadership of InSight’s medical director are able to provide evaluations, medication management, treatment planning, supervision or medical leadership, and even crisis intervention, as required, within many residential programs. Crisis interventions may be conducted in residential treatment centers during those hours in which existing psychiatric clinicians are not onsite and a resident experiences a crisis or needs an immediate face-to-face evaluation in order to diffuse a crisis. When used appropriately in collaboration with onsite staff, these on-demand psychiatric evaluations can often prevent trips to a hospital emergency department, psychiatric crisis center, and even admission to an inpatient mental health unit. Typical Equipment Setup Most residential treatment facilities will be best served through a fixed video conferencing setup that can be hard wired and installed within an existing office or conference room to be flexibly used as needed. For these telepsychairy encounters, a member of the onsite staff should always facilitate the interaction and handle the activation of the equipment and an introduction between the remote clinician and the patient. Depending on the severity of the case, it may not be necessary for the onsite facilitator to remain with the patient during the interview. As the interview concludes, the telepsychiatrist will communicate directly with the onsite staff to collaboratively discuss options and next steps. |
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