Nebraska moves forward on remote mental health care for children
A bill that would expand insurance coverage for children’s’ mental health screening advanced in the Nebraska State Legislature this week, emphasizing the inclusion of telehealth options for consults. The bill was approved 35-0. State Senator Amanda McGill of Lincoln, who sponsored the bill, says that only one percent of children receive proper mental healthcare in the state. Senator Bob Krist of Omaha added that the bill would make child psychologists and therapists available to the many rural regions of the state, in a cheap and efficient way. The program will cost $900,000 and fill an important gap that school systems are struggling to cover. “This is a real problem that goes beyond special education,” added Sen. Greg Adams.
Colorado pilots telemedicine consults in prisons
The Colorado Department of Corrections will team up with Denver Health Medical Center this summer to explore a project that will bring telemedicine to inmates. Designed to reduce costs by eliminating the need for expensive and dangerous prisoner transport to local clinics or hospitals, the program will use video equipment already owed by both systems to conduct remote visits.
“The program improves accessibility to specialty care, and there’s been some use cases throughout the U.S. about inmates escaping, so this decreases the risk,” explained Chris Wells, director of health IT architecture for Colorado’s Governor’s Office of Information Technology. Inmates in 19 correctional facilities will have access to physicians offering consults for rheumatology, orthopedics, infectious disease, and general surgery.
Transgender clinic in California offers nationwide care through videoconferencing
Lyon-Martin Health Services, a San Francisco-based clinic focusing on women, lesbians, and transgendered individuals, launched a nation-wide telehealth program this week offering confidential sessions with a trained transgender care specialist and a patient’s primary care provider through teleconferencing. With a general lack of understanding, minimal insurance coverage, and few resources devoted to the transgender population, estimated at around 700,000 Americans, access to targeted care can be impossible to find.
Teleconference sessions with a Lyon-Martin specialist can evaluate patients for hormone replacement therapy, gender reassignment surgery, or help them find insurance coverage and discuss available options. “There’s a need, and the word gets out into the community that there’s a safe place to get care, regardless of ability to pay,” says Clinic Director Elizabeth Sekera.
VA expands telehealth capabilities in South Carolina
The Department of Veterans Affairs is facing an unprecedented demand for services to help former service members cope with combat injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In Charleston, South Carolina, Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center is expanding its telehealth capabilities to help veterans access mental health care from their homes. “There’s no need for a person to drive all the way down to the VA if we can use the computer that they already have at their desk and have a conversation with them,” says PTSD program director Ron Acierno.
Telehealth conferences are popular with veterans seeking treatment, he added, noting that just as many patients use remote services as come in to the facility for a face-to-face session. The VA has focused on providing real-time care to veterans through telehealth for some time, and is working to increase its remote conferencing services at its healthcare centers across the country.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Jennifer Bresnick
Quelle/Source: EHRIntelligence, 21.05.2013
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