What the Data Tells Us About Telepsychiatry Efficacy and Popularity

In this exclusive video, Psych Congress Network Geriatric Psychiatry Section Editor Marc Agronin, MD, CMO, MIND Institute, Miami Jewish Health, discusses the meteoric rise of telehealth in mental health care practice. He also reviews data that explains the popularity and efficacy of telepsychiatry, and why that data indicates that virtual visits are here to stay.

Want more expert insights on virtual psychiatry? Visit our Telehealth Excellence Forum!

Read the Transcript:

Marc Agronin, MD: Hi, my name is Dr Marc Agronin. I'm a geriatric psychiatrist. I currently work as the chief medical officer for the Frank C. and Lynn Scaduto MIND Institute at Miami Jewish Health, I also oversee behavioral health there and I've been at Miami Jewish Health for the past 23 years. I'm also the geriatric psychiatry section editor for the Psych Congress Network.

Today I'd like to talk to you about telepsychiatry with a focus on older patients in particular. I'll give you an overview of what's been going on with telepsychiatry, we're all aware of how much it's really exploded onto the scene in the past couple years.

So we all know that telepsychiatry, even though it existed prior to COVID, really exploded during the COVID epidemic by necessity. In fact, it's amazing if you look at both telemedicine in general and telepsychiatry in particular, most places experienced anywhere between a 4000 to 8000% increase in the number of tele-visits that it has. So it's been just an extraordinary change in the way we practice medicine and psychiatry. In 2021 study of over 120 million visits for mental health found that almost 40% were conducted by telepsychiatry.

It's remarkable how much this has changed within the last couple years. Rates would vary by region, in general, those who had a little bit of a higher education, who were older were more likely to use it, more women than men were using telemedicine and telepsychiatry in particular. What's really interesting is that as it evolved, there's a lot of concern about how effective it would be, what would the outcomes look like, and would it be as good as just regular in-person medicine or psychiatry?

What's really interesting is that some data found that in general it was equally effective and that meant the outcomes were just as good. This was really reassuring, in part because studies found that patient satisfaction was really, really high. Actually no-show rates were lower when doing telepsychiatry versus in-person psychiatry. Obviously if you have higher patient satisfaction, there's going to be a tendency for individuals to adhere better to treatment, to engage better with therapists. So we really saw not only this explosion of telepsychiatry, but the outcomes, at least in the research conducted to date has been really good. In fact, there's even the emergence of a new specialist called a medical virtualist added to the nomenclature Now for different specialties people go into, and those are individuals who are completely digital in terms of the either medicine or psychiatry they provide.

Marc Agronin, MD, board-certified adult and geriatric psychiatrist, is the chief medical officer of the Frank C. and Lynn Scaduto MIND Institute and for Behavioral Health at Miami Jewish Health. Dr Agronin is an Affiliate Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Being a national expert in Alzheimer disease and geriatric mental health, he serves as the Geriatric Psychiatry Section Editor for Psych Congress Network.