Category: Telehealth/m-Health
Martin Franklin, Ph.D.
Rogers Behavioral Health
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Jonathan S. Comer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Florida International University
Miami, Florida
Martin Franklin, Ph.D.
Rogers Behavioral Health
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Michelle Maloney, Ph.D., LPC
Rogers Behavioral Health
Daytona Beach, Florida
Rachel Leonard, Ph.D.
Rogers Memorial Hospital
Pewaukee, Wisconsin
Bradley Riemann, Ph.D.
Chief Clinical Officer
Rogers Behavioral Health
Oconomowoc, Wisconsin
Emergency & Disaster Response: Using Telehealth Treatments to
Continue to Make an Impact in Adult and Pediatric Mental Health
Symposium Chair:
Martin E. Franklin
Rogers Behavioral Health
Lead Presenters:
Martin E. Franklin
Michelle Maloney
Rachel C. Leonard
Bradley C. Riemann
Rogers Behavioral Health
Discussant:
Jonathan Comer
Florida International University
Summary Abstract (2,183 characters)
Telehealth (TH) offers a potential avenue to bridge serious medical service gaps to rural and other isolated communities, and the formal evaluation of TH efficacy in a wide variety of medical subspecialties has been going now for decades. More recently, interest in telehealth applications for psychological and psychiatric services has grown, and evidence for their efficacy thus far further supports expansion of such services as well as acceptance of them as legitimate alternatives to In-Person (IP) care. The imperative to study and expand the reach of TH services in psychology and psychiatry was accelerated by the emergence of COVID-19, a highly contagious upper-respiratory virus which, given its ready transmission, led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a global pandemic in March 2020. IP services deemed non-essential were shut down almost immediately throughout the world, which forced a pivot to providing mental health services via TH. Because most of the prior efficacy studies done on TH mental health services were conducted in outpatient settings, it was largely unknown whether efficacy could still be achieved for those receiving services at higher levels of care such as Intensive Outpatient or Partial Hospitalization, where patients’ symptoms are typically more clinically severe, complex, and comorbid. Our research group at Rogers Behavioral Health endeavored to continue to provide mental health services during the pandemic, but also to make the most of the opportunity to study the efficacy of TH services. In the proposed symposium, TH data from four of our service lines will be presented: adult OCD (Dr. Riemann), pediatric OCD (Dr. Franklin), adult depression (Dr. Leonard), and co-occurring mental health and substance use disorder services (Dr. Maloney). As discussed in detail in the individual abstracts, findings across each of these service lines were generally supportive of the efficacy of TH, and offer further encouragement to determine how best to continue to offer and financially cover such services going forward even past the pandemic in an effort to increase access to empirically supported mental health interventions at all levels of care for the many communities for whom IP treatment is not readily accessible. Dr. Comer, an expert in CBT treatment development and outcomes evaluation who has conducted randomized trials of TH services, will serve as the symposium discussant. He will offer his perspective on the trials presented herein as well as his views of the burgeoning TH field more broadly speaking, both in terms of opportunities and challenges.
Presenter: Martin E. Franklin, Ph.D. – Rogers Behavioral Health
Presenter: Michelle Maloney, Ph.D., LPC – Rogers Behavioral Health
Co-author: Gregor Horvath, Ph.D. – Rogers Behavioral Health
Co-author: N.Z. Bulkes, Ph.D. – Rogers Behavioral Health
Co-author: D. Kick, Ph – Rogers Behavioral Health
Co-author: J. Hishmeh, Ph.D. – Rogers Behavioral Health
Co-author: S.R. LeNoue, Ph.D. – Rogers Behavioral Health
Presenter: Rachel C. Leonard, Ph.D. – Rogers Memorial Hospital
Presenter: Bradley Riemann, Ph.D. – Rogers Behavioral Health