The Psychiatric quarterly
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The Psychiatric quarterly · Sep 2021
Receipt of Telepsychiatry and Emergency Department Visit Outcomes in New York State.
Telepsychiatry has made psychiatric care more accessible to emergency department (ED) patients. To date, most telepsychiatry studies have focused on specific populations or small groups of EDs. This study sought to examine the potential role of telepsychiatry across a wider range of EDs by comparing visit dispositions for psychiatric visits in EDs that did (versus did not) receive telepsychiatry services. ⋯ The receipt of ED telepsychiatry is associated with lower usage of observation services for psychiatric visits, likely reducing the amount of time spent in the ED and mitigating the ongoing problem of ED crowding. An overwhelming majority of visits in EDs with telepsychiatry services were in urban hospitals with existing psychiatric services. Factors affecting the delivery and effectiveness of telepsychiatry services to hospitals lacking in psychiatric resources merit further investigation.