The demand for telepsychiatry has outpaced the supply due to the global scarcity of skilled board-certified psychiatrists. According to research, Tele-psychiatry is an efficient, inexpensive, and accessible alternative to in-person consultations.
According to research published in "The Indian Journal of
Psychiatry," PTSD is the most frequently diagnosed form of depression,
affecting 30% of Indian doctors and medical professionals. Additionally, the
epidemic has made all doctors more stressed, which has led to a rise in the
prevalence of anxiety and depression. Dr. Lorna Breen's Health Care Provider
Protection Act was enacted in the US on March 18, 2022. This measure
establishes grants and mandates additional activities to promote mental and
behavioral health for healthcare professionals. Due to such laws and
provisions, there will now be greater demand for mental health specialists to
care for patients and staff. Telepsychiatry can support hospitals, ERs,
clinics, and other healthcare facilities, enhancing the standard of treatment
for patients and medical staff.
Indian Mental Health Care
According to a recent analysis by
Deloitte, India had 0.29 psychiatrists and 0.07 psychologists for every 10,000
people, compared to the median of 0.51 psychiatrists and 0.26 psychologists in
other low and middle-income nations. Medical groups advise using telepsychiatry
for cross-border consultations to address the global shortage of qualified
psychiatrists and psychologists. We can handle the global lack of psychiatrists
and psychologists using telepsychiatry. With the advent of a telepsychiatry
platform, more businesses are moving toward hybrid healthcare that includes
in-person sessions. Currently, many nations are attempting to transform mental
health globally. Countries like the United States collaborate on a
public-private strategy to address mental health.
The 2022 budget release in India included
a discussion on mental health treatment. These coordinated efforts cover system
regulation, patient's rights protection, mental health care funding, and
research and innovation promotions. The Indian government has started a
nationwide telemental health program. This program would significantly improve
accessibility for patients in rural locations who need psychological assistance.
It will raise knowledge about mental health and lessen the stigma for people
seeking psychological services for the first time.
How The Epidemic Hastened The Healthcare
Industry's Digital Revolution
Telemedicine has been a timely and
much-needed tool over the last two years, according to doctors worldwide.
However, only a small number of telemedicine systems have assisted doctors in
lowering their stress levels regarding administrative tasks like producing
invoices or prescriptions, etc. Finding and implementing distinctive
telemedicine platforms that are patient and physician-centered, concentrating
on clinical care and easing the administrative burden, is crucial. Due to the
stigma surrounding mental health, we know that patient data is susceptible and
confidential, making it vulnerable to hacking due to weak security measures for
storage and access. Only a few telemedicine industries are using technology to
ensure transparency and interconnectivity of telehealth services, making them
more secure and reliable for mental health services. This is to address the
problem and achieve better patient data protection. Block-chain-based
telemedicine platforms will make it simpler to preserve patient data and
eliminate the stigma associated with mental health.
Leveraging Digital Technology For Health
Education
Telepsychiatry can transform many crucial
fields using digital technology to increase capacity. The clinical skills
necessary for the early identification and treatment of psychiatric diseases
rarely translate from traditional training programs that include technical
lectures, video demonstrations, PowerPoint presentations, and classroom
settings. The benefits of Tele-psychiatry training experiences include a
didactic curriculum and adaptability to adopt a pedagogical approach depending
on the professional. It receives bottom-up training, the opportunity for
service-based learning, and the freedom to attend training sessions whenever it
is most convenient for the students. Additionally, technology–enhanced learning
can assist students in participating in teleconference journal clubs, satellite
broadcasts, and simulated telepsychiatry consultations.
We can introduce the idea of observership
in psychiatry through telepsychiatry. Through online lessons, a learner can see
how to evaluate. Diagnose, and track the development of a patient. Providing
opportunities for additional exposure to challenging clinical circumstances and
enhancing liaison opportunities can radically restructure postgraduate
training. This could lead to the creation of experts with greater competence.
Technology can be used to educate and
train not only medical students but also primary care doctors, nurses, social
workers, psychologists, and other paramedical staff due to the lack of human
resources in the field of mental health care around the world, particularly in
low-and middle-income (LAMI) countries. This will assist in increasing
capacity, reaching unreached people, and providing care for underserved people.
Role Of Mental Health Applications In
Telepsychiatry
Personalizing Telehealth is a crucial area
where telepsychiatry has a lot of potentials. Smartphones are now widely used
thanks to recent advancements in communications, and everyone can use them to
offer patients individualized care. Applications for mobile devices designed
specifically for treating mental illness can provide a multidisciplinary team
with dynamic two-way communication. Patients can sign up for themselves in the
application tailored to their diagnosis. This application may develop into a
secure repository for all clinical information, including e-prescriptions, drug
status, allergies, comorbid illnesses, and a checklist to track side effects
and treatment adherence. With the help of this application, the professional
might also be able to oversee and manage the patient from a distance, similar
to running a virtual mental health clinic.
The Future Of Telepsychiatry Practice Will Be
Advanced By Virtual Reality And Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence's application in
psychiatry includes using machine learning algorithms and automated language
processing to evaluate a patient's mental state. Artificial intelligence is
widespread and has anything from diagnosis and prediction to treating mental
diseases. Applications are presently available that use artificial intelligence
to track smartphone usage patterns and identify users who may be at risk of
mental health issues. We can now use artificial intelligence-based algorithms
to predict treatment outcomes and cognitive symptoms like psychosis, which
might manifest as thinking abnormalities, behavioral disorganization, or
catatonia. By adding machine learning algorithms to human clinical ratings,
false negative and false positive diagnoses have also been reduced.
A human can interact with a
computer-generated simulation known as virtual reality (VR) by adopting
specialized gear. Numerous studies have demonstrated the value of virtual
reality (VR) as an engagement and diversion tool for people with mental
conditions such as PTSD, anxiety, particular phobias, schizophrenia, dementia,
etc. Virtual Reality technology can improve in vitro therapy, especially when
it's challenging to expose patients in vivo.
Additionally, VR can personalize the
exposure to particular contexts and stimuli that may trigger the patient's most
distressing symptoms in cases of PTSD and specific phobias. Soon, machine
learning will assist patients in receiving psychiatric treatment using
computerized conversational bots, boosting the possibility that they will
receive customized treatment protocols by establishing links between symptoms,
neurobiological conditions, and functioning across diagnoses. Artificial
intelligence can even transform the way that mental disorders are classified.
In the future, artificial intelligence might help the doctor diagnose a
patient, working together with specific applications to analyze a variety of
data, such as history, risk factors, side effects, current treatment
guidelines, etc., and come up with the best possible treatment plan for any
given patient, opening up the possibility of customized treatment.
Additionally, artificial intelligence may assess and alert to medicine demand,
account for available stocks, and automatically make an order for the drugs to
be delivered to predetermined locations.
Along with medication, a doctor might also
advise using a particular app for each disorder. These apps can be used for
various things, including tracking patient symptoms, generating electronic
prescriptions, providing psycho-educational tools, ensuring adherence, and
alerting both parties involved to any warning signs. By doing this, it is
guaranteed that prompt access to complete care is provided. An intriguing
development in the science of artificial intelligence is chatbots. They can be
crucial in detecting, diagnosing, and treating mental diseases because they are
conversational agents. Additionally, they may also help manage and prevent
suicide.
Online Counseling
Due to limited healthcare resources,
online support groups have grown in popularity over the last few years. A
Cochrane evaluation found even self-help programs for quitting smoking were
inferior. These groups cater to individuals with depression, suicidal thoughts,
substance misuse, cancer, and eating disorders. Social media's growing
popularity has given online peer networks the chance to support mental health
rehabilitation and minimize stigma. This becomes even more crucial for reaching
the unreached low- and middle-income countries. These peer support groups are
bringing about a paradigm shift by facilitating access to health information
and assisting persons with mental illness. Expanding on these benefits and
addressing whether peer-to-peer skills acquired via an online platform result
in a sustained improvement in social and occupational performance in the actual
world require future study. There are still methodological issues to be solved,
particularly in assessing such therapies and getting unbiased outcome data.
Electronic Health Records
Because psychiatrists are required by the
MHCA 2017 to maintain an essential medical record, these are crucial for
patients with mental illness. Patients can access health information that is
recorded (EHRs) and managed by a healthcare organization through electronic
health records (EHR) portals, which are provider-tethered applications.
Healthcare organizations are the owners and managers of these portals (such as
hospitals). Through these portals, organizations give patients restricted
web-based access to the clinical information contained in their patient health
records. Then, patients can access, read, print, or incorporate this data into
any patient–owned document (either electronic or paper-based).
Conclusion
Applications and artificial intelligence
in information technology cannot solve all of these issues. Still, they are
already improving assessment methods, developing new ways to collect data,
expanding access to mental health services, and altering the very nature of
service delivery. Clinical procedures will continue to change in the future,
particularly with the emergence of virtual reality, synchronous and
asynchronous video conferences, and other technologies that may help us reach
the right audiences. Tele-psychiatry will change as technology, clinical uses,
and care delivery paradigms advance. Tele- psychiatry incentives can help to
advance this even further. By enhancing the ability to communicate with
patients and their families, Tele-psychiatry will play a more integral part in
healthcare transformation due to this evolution. The blending of national and
international borders will give psychiatrists in India access to global
opportunities. International consumers would receive real-time services from an
Indian psychiatrist. This will start a new age of global regulation and
oversight of virtual health tourism.
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