ER Psychiatrist Support for Hospitals & Emergency Departments
Each year, a mental health or substance use disorder accounts for almost 19 million emergency department visits in the U.S. Hospital emergency rooms often face a critical shortage of psychiatric staff, creating a bottleneck in care and preventing timely patient transitions. When emergency room personnel must provide one-on-one monitoring for psychiatric patients, costs rise, staff resources are stretched thin, and overall emergency room efficiency declines.
A recent study of 17 different emergency departments around the U.S. showed that most departments feel they lack the resources necessary to provide proper psychiatric care, as their department is designed and equipped to respond to acute general medical emergencies. The study also identified telemedicine, including telepsychiatry services, as the first strategy to manage this challenge.
Telepsychiatry: A Rapid Solution for Emergency Room Psychiatry
Telepsychiatry provides fast, on-demand access to an ER psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner licensed in your state via secure video communication. This immediate access to psychiatric expertise allows emergency department staff to focus on critical medical cases while ensuring psychiatric patients receive appropriate care.
Around 31% of emergency department patients are hospitalized after psychiatric consultation. By expanding ER services to provide virtual access to psychiatric care, hospitals can expedite patient evaluation, ensure proper treatment planning, and streamline discharge coordination with insurance providers.
The Benefits of Telepsychiatry in Emergency Rooms
Cut down on wait times for all patients by more efficiently transitioning patients with psychiatric service needs out of the emergency department.
Lower costs associated with ancillary staff needed to provide one-to-one supervision of patients who are disruptive due to psychiatric symptoms.
Reduce risk management issues and costs associated with undertrained medical staff dispositioning patients with psychiatric service needs.
Decrease the cost of uncompensated care thanks to an increased ability to quickly discharge psychiatric patients.
Improve emergency room staff morale as they will no longer be expected to care for patients who they are undertrained to serve.
FasPsych: Your Trusted Partner in Emergency Room Psychiatry
Our interactive telehealth mental health service connects telepsychiatry practitioners with patients to provide on-demand mental health care.
When you work with FasPsych, we provide setup and ongoing support for you, which will include:
- Provide access to qualified, appropriately licensed psychiatrists, APRNs, and other psychiatric professionals.
- Arrange for our prescribing providers to use your electronic medical records and e-prescribing application.
- Coordinate with you to select the best schedule for your needs—choose full or part-time staff.
When you partner with FasPsych to provide telepsychiatric services for your emergency department, you can count on professional, reliable service from our entire team. Contact us today.
