Telepsychiatry

"Telepsychiatry is the 'granddaddy' of interactive-video consultation applications. It has been used since the early 1960's and continues to be the single most popular type of clinical consultation, accounting for 20 percent of all video consultations. There are several reasons that there has been so much telepsychiatry deployment relative to other specialties: it does not have the same resolution and motion-handling requirements of some other specialties (and thus requires less bandwidth and less sophisticated CODECs); it doesn't require peripheral devices; and it is an area that many rural practitioners feel especially eager to refer to someone else."
-Telemedicine Today, October 1998

Throughout the United States, rural communities are lacking in the availability of psychiatrists and psychologists. According to the 1993 Alaska Youth Mental Health Needs Assessment, rates for serious emotional disturbance among youth in some rural communities may be as high as 25 percent. Yet, rural communities do not have a suitable system by which to identify those suffering from or at risk for mental illness.

The dilemma is rooted primarily in the unavailability of professionals trained to diagnosis and treat mental disorders. Round trip airfares from remote communities may be as high as $1,000 per person, which is prohibitive for many families. For scarce specialties, like child psychiatrists and child psychologists, to travel to these remote communities of a regular basis is costly both in economic terms and in available specialist's time. Telemedicine, thus, offers a unique opportunity to make the needed skills available to rural locales.

Telepsychiatry provides for direct care, clinical consultation, case management, and administrative activities via visual communications between distant locations. Mental health interactions are straightforward, and demand little other than that the participants see and talk with one another. There is no need for sophisticated peripheral devices such as video oto-ophthalmoscopes or electronic stethoscopes which is the reason why telepsychiatry was the first to make use of interactive video for medical purposes. 

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