This is a five-year AHRQ-funded randomized clinical trial spearheaded by Peter Yellowlees, MD MBBS, our principal investigator.
I direct patient interviews, analyze data, revise/assist with IRB preparation, and manage other logistics. We will present this at the Stanford Medicine X conference and the American Psychiatric Association’s IPS Mental Health Services conference, and have already presented this at the American Telemedicine Association.
A bit more about the asynchronous telepsychiatry project, authored by our research manager Michelle Parish, MA:
Health information technologies — such as telemedicine — have been identified as important tools in advancing the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) by streamlining communication, boosting access, and decreasing time delays in seeing a specialist from months to minutes. Within mental health, studies show that telepsychiatry can help patients gain better access to specialists. However, telepsychiatry (STP), which traditionally uses synchronous, live two-way videoconferencing, has scheduling issues, cost limitations, and administrative barriers — similar to in-person care — that have prevented wide-scale use of this technology. A novel method, asynchronous telepsychiatry (ATP), a virtual mental health visit, is a more rapid, efficient, and administratively simple way for primary care providers to gain access to psychiatric expertise —supporting a collaborative model of care.
ATP is an emerging technology in the field of mental health that supports PCMH and in particular helps PCP’s better manage patients with comorbid physical conditions and mental illness. ATP also encourages patient involvement in their own mental health care by creating a patient-provider-specialist communication triangulation and paves the way to utilize patient-generated data in routine mental health care. Following successful pilots, feasibility trials, and preliminary cost-benefit analysis, we are conducting a randomized clinical trial of clinical outcomes, funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), evaluating the clinical effectiveness of ATP compared with STP.
Our research team:
• Peter Yellowlees MD (principal investigator)
• Alberto Odor MD
• Lorin Scher MD
• Michelle Parish MA
• Steven Chan MD
• Breanne Harris BA
• Jen Bannister BA
• Glen Xiong MD
• Robert McCarron MD
• Andres Sciolla MD
• Anna-Maria Iosif PhD
• Paul Leigh PhD
• Bill Brady MD and Auburn Clinic staff – UCD PCN
• Scott MacDonald MD and J St Clinic staff – UCD
• Communicare FQHC staff
• CHT technical team – George Wu, Kalim Simon
• EMR Epic team – Mike Minear and Hien Nguyen MD
• Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic – Becky Mackey
• Don Hilty MD USC
• Jay Shore MD U Colorado