Question 1

Why choose Orbit Health for your correctional facility?

Accepted Answer

Orbit Health is different from other telepsychiatry companies because Orbit Health's primary mission is to end the cycle of mass incarceration of the mentally ill. Led by the world’s leading experts and pioneers in correctional telepsychiatry, Orbit Health has specialized knowledge, skill, and experience to provide the finest quality of services to jails, prisons, juvenile detention centers, and forensic hospitals.

Many correctional settings struggle to meet State and Federal mental health care mandates, often due to limited psychiatric resources. Patients behind bars struggle to achieve psychiatric stability, making it difficult to function in these settings and leading to worsening outcomes, such as rules violations and enhanced sentences. Time and again, Orbit Health has improved access to care while reduced patient backlogs, thereby helping facilities function safely and efficiently.

Orbit Health's goal is to ensure patients attain stability before, during, and after incarceration in order to achieve success in any setting. Mental and emotional stability reduces the rate of recidivism, and nobody in the world does this better than Orbit Health.

If you are looking for correctional telepsychiatry services for your facility, or you are a provider looking for a job opportunity in corrections, contact Orbit Health today!

Question 2

What is telepsychiatry?

Accepted Answer

Telepsychiatry is the delivery of psychiatric care remotely using technology, usually through videoconferencing platforms. It can involve mental health evaluations, therapy, medication management, and patient education. Telepsychiatry is the fastest growing sector of the telemedicine and is the future of mental health care.

Telepsychiatry is a form of telemedicine that generally refers to the delivery of psychiatric assessment and care via telecommunication, typically using videoconferencing software. The practice of telepsychiatry has been in development since well before the pandemic quarantines, as an effort to account for the millions of Americans who suffer from mental illnesses but are unable to get proper psychiatric care.

Telepsychiatry brings mental health care to individuals who are unable to see a medical professional in person for any of a variety of reasons, including the cost and availability of travel, incarceration, or contagion. Now, with shelter orders and quarantines keeping medical offices closed and people restricted to their homes, telepsychiatry provides a promising alternative to in-person psychiatric care.

Question 3

Is telepsychiatry as effective as in-person sessions?

Accepted Answer

The psychiatric professionals at Orbit Health are among the best in the industry. They can provide clinical diagnoses, treatments, and effective outcomes, as well as increase community health in wellness, especially in underserved areas.

The lack of physical proximity does not inhibit our experts’ ability to diagnose and treat patients suffering from any number of psychiatric conditions. The level of privacy and confidentiality is the same as in-person care.

Research shows that telepsychiatry is just as effective as in-person, face-to-face care. Many patients, in fact, find that psychiatric treatment via videoconferencing is less intimidating or embarrassing. Patients, psychiatrists, and other professionals have all reported high levels of satisfaction with telepsychiatry since its inception.

Question 4

Where do patients receive treatment?

Accepted Answer

Patients can visit their local clinic, medical office, or hospital. Wherever you can set up a private space for video conferencing, patients can comfortably sit and engage with our mental health professionals.

Question 5

What are the benefits of telepsychiatry?

Accepted Answer

In addition to the obvious benefit of being able to see a mental health professional while under quarantine, telepsychiatry offers many additional advantages to traditional mental health care. Telepsychiatry can be much more economically feasible for many individuals who are unable to afford mental health care. Seeing a doctor from the comfort of your home eliminates the need to deal with travel, lost work hours, childcare, and other expenses that may arise from the need to travel to a specific location. It can also lead to lower co-pays by reducing overhead costs for mental healthcare providers.

Telepsychiatry also brings mental health care to regions that are currently under-served, such as rural areas. Not every locale has licensed, available mental healthcare professionals, and telepsychiatry allows qualified professionals to treat patients anywhere they can find an internet connection.

Moreover, telepsychiatry can help to escape some of the stigma associated with mental health care. Patients do not need to drive to a hospital or medical office and sit in a waiting room with strangers while at their most vulnerable. Instead, patients can simply log on and connect directly with their mental healthcare professionals.

If you are an administrator of a health system or a healthcare provider in need of a way to deliver mental health services, reach out to Orbit Health to discuss how telepsychiatry can expand your options for healthcare delivery and meet the needs of patients in today’s challenging environment.

Question 6

How can Orbit Health provide COVID-19 psychiatry services?

Accepted Answer

Identify a small confidential area accessible for clinical use. All you really need is internet access, a desk, and a chair. We will place a video screen there and provide psychiatrists via high quality videoconferencing technology. We can use your existing computers or devices to stream a connection over a web-based telepsychiatry platform. Alternatively, we can provide a portable device that is dedicated to telepsychiatry and is always on. The technologies we use are specifically designed for telehealth encounters and are HIPAA compliant. Clinical encounters are not recorded.

When the patient is ready to be seen, our telepsychiatrist will appear on the screen to provide expert clinical care. After the session, the telepsychiatrist will submit the clinical documentation directly into your electronic health record.

What are the advantages of Orbit Health Telepsychiatry?

Providing telepsychiatry staff with expertise and training in COVID-19 and mental health
Providing psychiatric medication management and psychotherapy
Participating in treatment team meetings and consultation with onsite staff
Increasing patient satisfaction
Improving patient outcomes
Reducing costs of recruiting, hiring, managing and retaining onsite staff

Question 7

Has research been done to prove child & adolescent telepsychiatry works? What’s the evidence base?

Accepted Answer

Yes, children, adolescents, and families can benefit from telepsychiatry. In a variety of mental health conditions such as ADHD, autism, and OCD, studies have indicated that video visits are useful in accessing psychiatric specialists and improving symptoms.

In attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) studies with telepsychiatry, for instance, improvement in hyperactivity and combined ADHD has been shown in hundreds of children in randomized clinical trials, combining video visits with child psychiatrists along with caregiver behavior, versus treatment with their primary care providers augmented with telepsychiatry consults. In autism, clinicians can use telepsychiatry videoconferencing for diagnosis & assessment. And, in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), video visits reduced symptoms versus a waitlist control in a randomized clinical trial.

We additionally see video visits used to give behavioral parent training, with live therapists, showing treatment response and improvements in children ’s symptoms as well as easing of parental burden. Video visits can also help with parental coaching for children with autism, to help conduct home assessments, and for communication coaching.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry provides expert guidance on how to deliver psychiatric services to this population, including optimizing clinical visits. This guidance is assembled by experts on the Committee on Telepsychiatry and the Committee on Quality Issues.

Sources:

Myers K, vander Stoep A, Zhou C, et al. Effectiveness of a telehealth service delivery model for treating attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: results of a community-based randomized controlled trial. J Amer Asso Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2015;54(4):263-74.
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Committee on Telepsychiatry and the Committee on Quality Issues. Clinical Update for Telepsychiatry with Children and Adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 2017;56(10):875–893.
Comer JS, Furr JM, Miguel E, Cooper-Vince CE, Carpenter AL, …Myers KM & Chase R. Remotely delivering real-time parent training to the home: An initial randomized trial of Internet-delivered Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (I-PCIT). Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 2017; 85 (9): 909–917.
Lee JF, Schieltz KM, Suess AN, Wacker DP, Romani PW, Lindgren SD, Kopelman TG, Padilla Dalmau YC. Guidelines for developing telehealth services and troubleshooting problems with telehealth technology when coaching parents to conduct functional analyses and functional communication training in their homes. Behavior Analysis Practice DOI 10.1007/s40617-014-0031-2; Published online 27 November 2014.
Myers K and Roth DE. Telepsychiatry with children and adolescents. In: Martin A, Volkmar FR, and Bloch MH (Eds), Lewis's Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: A Comprehensive Textbook, 5th Edition. Wolters Kluwer, Philadelphia, 2018; Chapter 6.3.5.
Reese RM, Jamison R, Wendland M, Fleming K, Braun MJ, Schuttler JO et al. Evaluating interactive videoconferencing for assessing symptoms of autism. Telemedicine and J E Health. 2013;19(9):671-677.
Storch EA, Caporino NE, Morgan JR, Lewin AB, Rojas A, Brauer L et al. Preliminary investigation of web-camera delivered cognitive-behavioral therapy for youth with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Psychiatry Research. 2011;189(3):407-412.
Vander Stoep A, McCarty C, Zhou C, Rockhill CM, Schoenfelder E, Myers K. The Children’s Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Telemental Health Treatment Study: caregivers’ outcomes. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 2016; 45(1):27-43.

Question 8

Do I need specialized equipment for telepsychiatry?

Accepted Answer

In order to implement telepsychiatry, you need only a solid internet connection (DSL, cable, T1 or higher) and a device capable of videoconferencing. While a laptop or PC with a good web camera and microphone are preferable, a tablet or even a smartphone can work in a pinch for teleconferencing.

No specialized media equipment is necessary, although you can certainly set up a conference room for ideal communications with a larger group of people.

Question 9

What conditions are treatable through telepsychiatry?

Accepted Answer

Telemedicine allows for treatment of any condition that does not require physical presence to treat. Psychiatry is uniquely suitable for telemedicine practice. Therapy, counseling, diagnosis, and treatment for nearly every psychological disorder — whether related to mood, anxiety, cognitive functioning, substance dependency, etc. — can be conducted via telepsychiatric sessions.

Telepsychiatry has the added benefit of allowing for specialists to conference in from anywhere in the country, or even the world, meaning that you can treat more specific, more esoteric, or more exotic conditions as needed.

Question 10

Should groups be based on demographics, location, culture, or perhaps topic-focused?

Accepted Answer

The more group members have in common, the easier it is for them to develop bonds.

However, in today's world, there are so many ways you can categorize people. People of the same race may have vastly different attitudes and values, for instance.

But more than anything else, people bond over shared experiences. Also, people with different mental conditions may have great difficulty relating to each other, even if they share the same culture or race. Thus, it is important that a group be focused on a specific mental health condition.