Telemental health seems to be emerging, even booming. Also referred to as telebehaviorial health, e-counseling, e-therapy, online therapy, cybercounseling, or online counseling, for purposes of this post, I will define telemental health as the provision of remote mental health care services (usually via an audio/video secure platform) by psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, and marriage and family therapists. Most services involve assessment, therapy, and/or diagnosis. Over the last few years, I have seen a wider variety of care models—from hospitals establishing telepsychiatric assessment programs in their emergency departments to virtual networks of mental health professionals providing telemental health services to underserved areas to remote substance abuse counseling being provided to inmates in state prisons.
Monthly Archives: September 2016
The $54 million hospital without any beds
Instead, 330 staffers at Mercy’s Virtual Care Center, located just outside of St. Louis, place video calls to patients using highly sensitive two-way cameras — and monitor their vital signs in real time through tools like pulse oximeters that plug into an iPad.
We need better engagement, not more apps
As the Chief Experience Officer at the Cleveland Clinic, you might expect Adrienne Boissy to be a champion for the health system’s many mobile apps. But, at the Pop Health Forum in Chicago this week, Boissy took a different tack, arguing that apps by themselves are not a strategy, and can get in the way of a positive patient experience if they’re not deployed smartly.
Study finds patients often misuse wrist blood pressure monitors, leading to inaccurate readings
Not all blood pressure monitors are created equal, it seems. New research from Italy suggests that at-home, wrist blood pressure cuffs can be inaccurate if not done exactly right, leading to false reports of elevated blood pressure at home when compared to measurements taken in a doctor’s office.
Apple will now start screening medical and health apps more closely
Apple just released updated App Store Review Guidelines, and there are tremendous implications for the medical and health apps in the iOS App Store.
The changes they are announcing contain the most stringent language I have ever seen Apple use for the health and medical categories of apps. Frankly — these are a long time coming. The FDA recently updated guidelines on health apps, but this is definitely a bigger deal as Apple is the gateway for these apps.
How Nighttime Telehealth Services Can Improve Overnight Care
In hospitals across the country, the image of the solitary doctor making midnight rounds is changing, thanks to telemedicine.
That doctor now sits in front of a tablet, laptop or desktop computer, perhaps at home or even in another country. And he or she can be connected to several hospitals via a telemedicine network, helping night shift nurses with whatever needs to be done during those long, not-always-quiet hours between dinner and breakfast.
MUSC launches e-visit program for nonemergency care
Sinus problems, urinary tract infections, allergies, back pain and sexually transmitted diseases are among the more than 30 conditions that patients can now be treated for using the Medical University of South Carolina’snew e-visit program.