The Telepsychiatry Advantage: Episode 1

The Telepsychiatry Advantage

 

Episode 1: Getting Started in Telepsychiatry! Here’s What Actually Matters.

Hello everyone. I’m Doctor Edward Kaftarian and I’m the chairman and CEO of Orbit Health Telpsychiatry and I’d like to welcome you to The Telepsychiatry Advantage, the first exclusively telepsychiatry podcast in the world. 

 

I was really surprised when I did some research and saw that there are no other telepsychiatry podcasts, at least none that I could find. And I think that’s a shame because we need to share information and experience about telepsychiatry. Telepsychiatry is providing psychiatry services through video. It’s pretty simple, but not easy because there are lots of things to consider about telepsychiatry.  Not only the way that you come across on camera and hopefully I’m coming across okay right now for you and those of you listening, I hope the audio is very clear.

But it’s not just about the technical aspects which we will talk about. We’re going to also talk about the clinical aspects. For example, are all patients suitable for tele psychiatry? You hear a lot of people that have delusions that are psychotic are not appropriate necessarily. So we’re going to explore whether that’s true or not or how true that might be.

We’re going to look at other patient populations and see how they may benefit from telepsychiatry. And we’re going to talk about how to establish rapport with these patients over the camera.

 

So when you’re in your office talking to a patient, you are going to have a certain type of energy exchange between the patient and the doctor. Does that energy change with telepsychiatry?

How is that different?  So we’re going to talk about the dynamics of the clinical encounter. 

 

We’re also going to talk about things like in what situations may telepsychiatry be most advantageous in and other situations where it might not be the right time and place to do telepsychiatry. 

For example, if somebody is acutely suicidal, what do you do? Let’s say you’re in the middle of a tell us psychiatry appointment, and your patient says that they’re going to kill themselves right now. 

So we’re going to talk about scenarios like that. How do you manage your emergency situations when somebody is a danger to self, danger to others or gravely disabled? What can you pick up on camera, and what kind of mental health symptoms are more difficult to pick up on camera?

 

We’re also going to keep you up to date on regulations. For example, how to prescribe controlled substances. I don’t know how many of you have heard of the Ryan Haight Act, but that’s the way that the DEA enforces telemedicine or the rules around telemedicine encounters and controlled substances. What situations are allowed, and what situations are not allowed when you’re prescribing controlled substances remotely?

 

We’re also going to talk about the tools that you can use. For example, the lighting, the audio, the video, the background. We’re going to talk a little bit about how to set up an appropriate telepsychiatry background, what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate. And we’re going to get into all kinds of technical matters around it.

 

So it’s going to be a broad variety of clinical, technical, operational, regulatory issues that we discuss. And hopefully we’ll have some guests to talk about their experiences because, although I have many years of practicing psychiatry and I have lots of experience to share, I don’t want it to just be about my unique personal experience, I want it also to be about how other people are experiencing psychiatry. And maybe I wonder if we could even get a patient with their approval, to talk about what it feels like to do an appointment with telepsychiatry, 

 

We’re going to talk about the future where tele psychiatry is going. I feel like I’m going to say the word tell us psychiatry thousands of times by the time this podcast is done. So, bear with me on that one. But I think that this is going to be a lot of fun, and we’re going to learn a lot about:

•  how to do telepsychiatry better 
• how we can connect with patients in a more meaningful way,
•  how we can drive better outcomes, 
• how we can keep ourselves safe. 
• And most importantly, we want to keep the patients safe.

 

So we want to practice and have great outcomes. And that’s going to require, both an art and a science. So the skills of telepsychiatry are going to be really important for us to develop so that we can do our job really, really well. We’re going to want to present ourselves well. For example, do we look the part? Do we look like a psychiatrist? Because that’s going to be important too. 

 

So we’re going to try to touch on all kinds of topics related to telepsychiatry. There are probably topics out there that are emerging that people are curious about, and we’re going to have a way for the audience to suggest topics to get involved.

 

So keep that in mind as well. But I’m very, very excited to bring you the telepsychiatry advantage. And this is brought to you by Orbit Health Telepsychiatry the longest running telepsychiatry program in the world. And we’re really excited to be with you. And let’s get things started!