Virtual Mental Health Care For Rural And Underserved Settings

This book focuses on the critical area of delivering mental health services in rural settings. It is designed as a practical guide to the technological provision of timely, effective, evidence-based care, helpful to the novice and the experienced practitioner alike. The benefits of this approach are: Improved access to and improved quality of care Technical support for providers and administrators A means of providing missing specialty care An ability to maximize scarce resources and significant flexibility for health service delivery. The book will cover how to adjust therapeutic skills to patients’ needs, models of care and the particular technology used. It shows how rudimentary design of workflow can assist in integrating care, and highlights the importance of allowing for cultural needs (both rural geography and ethnic/race). Administrative issues are also addressed (e.g., privacy, reimbursement). The chapters are short and designed for maximum practicality, including learning objectives, cases and summaries emphasizing “what to do and how to do it.”

This book provides a basic introduction to geriatric telepsychiatry, including potential benefits and drawbacks of utilizing this treatment modality. The text discusses applications in academic, public, federal, and educational settings and suggests practical guidelines for implementing and maintaining a telepsychiatry program. As the elder population continues to grow over the next several decades, digital tools, including videoconferencing, will play a large role in meeting the needs of the elderly. Written by the leaders in geriatric telepsychiatry, this text is the first to focus on the psychiatric application of these digital tools, lay out the policies and guidelines for treating patients who can benefit from this service, and outline the most cutting-edge research on the topic. Geriatric Telepsychiatry is the ultimate guide for psychiatrists, geriatricians, social workers, geriatric nurses, students, long-term care facilitators, and all medical professionals who work with the elderly psychiatric patient.

In 1996, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its report Telemedicine: A Guide to Assessing Telecommunications for Health Care. In that report, the IOM Committee on Evaluating Clinical Applications of Telemedicine found telemedicine is similar in most respects to other technologies for which better evidence of effectiveness is also being demanded. Telemedicine, however, has some special characteristics-shared with information technologies generally-that warrant particular notice from evaluators and decision makers. Since that time, attention to telehealth has continued to grow in both the public and private sectors. Peer-reviewed journals and professional societies are devoted to telehealth, the federal government provides grant funding to promote the use of telehealth, and the private technology industry continues to develop new applications for telehealth. However, barriers remain to the use of telehealth modalities, including issues related to reimbursement, licensure, workforce, and costs. Also, some areas of telehealth have developed a stronger evidence base than others. The Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) sponsored the IOM in holding a workshop in Washington, DC, on August 8-9 2012, to examine how the use of telehealth technology can fit into the U.S. health care system. HRSA asked the IOM to focus on the potential for telehealth to serve geographically isolated individuals and extend the reach of scarce resources while also emphasizing the quality and value in the delivery of health care services. This workshop summary discusses the evolution of telehealth since 1996, including the increasing role of the private sector, policies that have promoted or delayed the use of telehealth, and consumer acceptance of telehealth. The Role of Telehealth in an Evolving Health Care Environment: Workshop Summary discusses the current evidence base for telehealth, including available data and gaps in data; discuss how technological developments, including mobile telehealth, electronic intensive care units, remote monitoring, social networking, and wearable devices, in conjunction with the push for electronic health records, is changing the delivery of health care in rural and urban environments. This report also summarizes actions that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can undertake to further the use of telehealth to improve health care outcomes while controlling costs in the current health care environment.

Named a 2013 Doody's Core Title! Addressing the needs of America's most underserved areas for mental health services, Rural Mental Health offers the most up-to-date, research-based information on policies and practice in rural and frontier populations. Eminent clinicians and researchers examine the complexities of improving mental health in rural practice and offer clear recommendations which can be adapted into current practice and training programs. They bring an incisive lens to factors that contribute to mental illness and prevent access to treatment areas. These include limited resources, reliance on urban models and assumptions, and pervasive misunderstanding of rural realities by policy makers. The text also addresses diversity issues in regard to rural mental health services. Key Features: Focuses on best practices and new models of service delivery in rural populations Provides clear recommendations for adapting new models in current practice and training programs Takes a micro and macro approach to service delivery models Covers contemporary practice applications with specific populations in rural areas

The Patient-Centered Clinical Method (PCCM) has been a core tenet of the practice and teaching of medicine since the first edition of Patient-Centered Medicine - Transforming the Clinical Method was published in 1995. This timely fourth edition continues to define the principles underpinning the patient-centered clinical method using four major components, clarifying its evolution and consequent development, and it brings the reader fully up to date. It reinforces the relevance of the method in the current much-changed realities of health care in a world where virtual care will remain common, dependence on technology is rising, and societal changes away from compassion, equity, and relationships toward confrontation, inequity, and self-absorption. Fully revised by its highly experienced author team ensuring wide interest and written for those practising now and for the practitioners of the future, this new edition will be welcomed by a wide international audience comprising all health professionals from medicine, nursing, social work, occupational therapy, physical therapy, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, and other fields.

This book considers how rurality interacts with the mental health and wellbeing of individuals and communities in different regional settings. Through the use of international and comparative case studies, the book offers insight into the spatiality of mental health diagnoses, experiences, services provision and services access between and within rural areas. It is the first book to specifically address rural mental health geographies from an international perspective, and will be of interest to researchers and policymakers in rural studies, regional studies, health geography and rural mental health.

This Handbook outlines in detail the features and challenges of rural and remote mental health service delivery and pragmatic considerations to address these, to ensure people in less populated areas receive an equivalent quality of service to their city-dwelling counterparts. The scope of the book includes general descriptions of the rural and remote context as well as the professional and ethical considerations involved in working in these areas. The book includes information specific to the professions that contribute to effective and efficient mental health services, as well as addressing specific areas of practice that warrant focused attention because of their importance. In order to cover the field comprehensively, the Handbook has four sections. The first section deals with the general context of rural and remote practice including a description of the general features of the setting and the importance of attention to ethical and professional standards. The second section of the Handbook describes different ways of working in rural and remote contexts. Rural and remote contexts provide many opportunities for innovation and creativity but it is imperative that novel approaches do not compromise the quality and integrity of the service. The third section covers individual professions in detail and the fourth section focuses specifically on particular areas of practice that present challenges for rural and remote areas. Academics will find this Handbook a valuable evidence-based resource to enhance their teaching of undergraduate and postgraduate mental health students. Practitioners will find this book an important reference guide to enrich and broaden their rural and remote experiences. They will be informed of the latest research evidence and will be provided with practical advice and strategies to promote advanced clinical practice in this challenging context.

How has technology changed the art and science of nursing practice? Many facets of nursing practice have stayed constant over the years such as the way we advocate for our patients and the art of caring for our patients. However, nursing practice has evolved over the years especially in the bedside delivery of state of the art nursing care. Technology at the bedside has forced nurse educators to change the ways in which we always have taught nursing students. Technology has also begun to change the methods used in the actual bedside nursing care. In this issue, you will hear from some of the nursing experts in areas of nursing care that has changed in either the delivery of care or method of assessing care of the patient. Nursing experts will describe some of the historical changes and intrigue you in the changes expected to come to the bedside. Why is this issue important? First, we gain insight from a review of where we have been and nurses tend to reminisce on our past as well as romance our historical roots. Second, technology is ever changing and it is good practice to keep abreast of what is happening in other areas of nursing so that we can apply others successes in our own specific areas of nursing. Third, informatics in nursing is a growing field and nursing must embrace technology and learn to adapt various methods of delivery so that we can appropriately care for and advocate for our patients. With the changes in our national healthcare system, we must encourage nurses to try out new methods of delivery as well as encourage their ideas of how nursing can change. The articles in this issue reflect these changes.