Every year, more and more people experiencing urgent mental health issues come to emergency rooms across California in need of help — just one example of the state’s growing mental health challenges.
Many hospitals across the Sutter Health network use a telepsychiatry service that connects 24/7 to teams of qualified mental health providers around the country. This helps to ensure patients in the emergency department and inpatient medical units are evaluated as soon as possible by a licensed psychiatrist.
To provide this much-needed service, Sutter works with Virtual Medical Staff, which recruits providers and manages the call center that takes in requests for consultation. The call center has a single number that every hospital uses to access the service. All telepsychiatry providers are doctors who hold privileges in each of the Sutter hospitals where the service is available. The doctors have the ability to review records, enter notes in Sutter’s medical record system and put in orders.
Using safe and secure video conferencing technology that’s also HIPAA compliant, telepsychiatry providers can visit with patients 13 years or older via a workstation equipped with a computer screen that can be wheeled into the patient’s room. Once the patient has been evaluated, the telepsychiatrist will contact the attending doctor or emergency department provider to discuss assessment, recommendations and follow-up needs.
Tim Jones, Sutter Health’s telepsychiatry program manager, says that extra layer of support broadens access to mental health services for Sutter patients throughout Northern California, especially in rural areas.
“We have several rural-area hospitals in the Sutter network. In some instances, there are very limited options for psychiatry services or none at all,” Jones says. “But the need for psychiatric care is constant. We worked very hard to identify an option that would treat the whole patient, mind and body, in an acute care setting.”
Since Sutter Health’s telepsychiatry program launched in October 2017, more than 4,200 patients have received services.