Question 1

How can I combat Zoom fatigue symptoms?

Accepted Answer

Videoconferencing and remote professional services are now a regular practice in many industries. However, these remote calls can lead to feelings of fatigue.

If you find yourself exhausted by all of the video calls in your life, here are a few tips:

Schedule “no meeting” blocks of time. Make sure there are parts of your day when you are away from a screen.
Avoid multitasking. When you are on a call, focus on the business of the call. Avoid pulling up a second window to read emails or conduct other work. Multitasking during calls leads to a loss of productivity and difficulty remembering what occurred in the meeting.
Limit the number of calls. Do what you can to cut down on your overall number of calls. Group calls with separate people or teams together where feasible and appropriate. If a video call is not actually necessary, resolve the issues via phone, email, or a collaborative document. Do not default to a video call for every type of meeting. If you are meeting a stranger for the first time, such as a networking connection, for example, video calls can feel personal and invasive; start with a phone call.
Take breaks. If your call lasts more than an hour, it is important to take breaks. Get up and walk around, use the restroom, get a glass of water. Everyone will have more energy and remain more productive as a result.
Turn off your self-view. Video call programs like Zoom default to displaying your own video as well as others on the call. Staring at your own face can be distracting and increase stress and anxiety. Hide yourself from your own view so you can focus on the other people on the call.
Limit on-screen stimuli. In addition to hiding your face and keeping other windows closed, do what you can to limit what you see on-screen. Encourage people to take calls in front of plain backgrounds instead of a room full of objects. Seeing five different rooms full of furniture can cause disorientation and increase mental fatigue.

Learn more in our complete article, "Videoconferencing Fatigue and What to Do About It."

Question 2

How can a provider start a telepsychiatry practice?

Accepted Answer

To start a telepsychiatry practice, you must be licensed by the state to practice, and meet the requirements of your practice. Ideally, you would have board certification in psychiatry.

You'll additionally need broadband, a desktop computer such as a Mac or Windows PC, along with a webcam. Ideally, you can use a dedicated microphone and speaker headset, to maximize your audio.

You need to ensure you have the right software. You need to ensure you have an electronic health record, a prescription system, and ways to receive and send messages. Your videoconferencing setup -- whether it's Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams -- needs to be HIPAA-compliant, and you would need a signed business associates agreement (BAA). While you could create a telemedicine service from scratch, there can be costs for telehealth implementation. Costs include human resources (HR) time, but also marketing, malpractice and legal, along with additional training time.

Finally, you can join an existing group, like Orbit Health. Orbit Health offers full-time and part-time positions in adult psychiatry (outpatient, inpatient, partial hospitalization, and more), child & adolescent psychiatry, community psychiatry, emergency & crisis psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry/health. Partnering with Orbit Health is a faster way to implement telepsychiatry services than building your own services from scratch. Orbit Health provides telepsychiatry for facilities across the United States, with board-certified physicians and nurse practitioners licensed in all 50 states.

Whether you enjoy working from home or on-site, Orbit Health has multiple positions for psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, and more! Here’s why people like working for Orbit Health — where you can tell us about your job interests and apply to work with us.

Question 3

What hardware and apps should I use for telehealth visits for those with hearing impairments?

Accepted Answer

If you see enough patients, you are bound to run into patients who may be hard of hearing or deaf. Persons with disabilities deserve great care. Effective communication is essential to ensure a high quality of care.

Consider using the following computer equipment, hardware setup, and apps, for your telehealth and telepsychiatry visits:

Make sure that there is as little background noise as possible on both sides of the camera. This can be challenging in certain facilities that are inherently noisy, such as jails or inpatient units. Its helpful to have a dedicated office for telepsychiatry that can be insulated against background noise.
Use a high-quality microphone speaker on both sides of the telehealth session. These are easy to use and inexpensive devices. You just plug and play, with a USB port.
If the quality is still not good, you can connect the audio through the telephone while keeping video with the telemedicine platform.
Provide the patient with headphones (noise cancelling preferred). This allows the patient to increase the volume and minimize the diffraction of noise.
There are several closed-captioning apps on the market. Also, some videoconferencing platforms include closed captioning as an option. Just be sure that these technologies are all HIPAA compliant.

Check out our full post on "Telepsychiatry for the Hearing Impaired – Top 10 Tips."

Question 4

How can I improve the telehealth experience for those with hearing difficulties or who are deaf?

Accepted Answer

You and your team may treat persons who have hearing difficulties, whether they are hard of hearing or death. Consider the following in your workflow, such as involving staff to troubleshoot audio quality, involving a sign language interpreter, and sharing your screen:

Check to make sure if the patient is understanding you. Have them repeat back what you said from time to time.
If you have a telepresenter (a staff member on the patient side), they can tell you if its poor audio quality or if its good quality but the patient just can’t hear you because of their impairment. You can have the telepresenter repeat your words to the patient during your appointment.
If the patient knows American Sign Language, you can easily include an ASL interpreter into the videoconferencing session as part of a group chat.
Type out what you want the patient to know and screen share it with them. Make sure to use a big text so they can easily see the words. You can put your words in a Word document or the like, then click screen share. Problem solved!
If all else fails, arrange for the patient to be seen in person. Usually this is not necessary as there are so many ways to ensure good quality of audio. These days, audio via technology should not differ much from the audio in person.

Check out our full post on "Telepsychiatry for the Hearing Impaired – Top 10 Tips."

How can I combat Zoom fatigue symptoms?

How can a provider start a telepsychiatry practice?

What hardware and apps should I use for telehealth visits for those with hearing impairments?

How can I improve the telehealth experience for those with hearing difficulties or who are deaf?

Need telepsychiatry for your organization?

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