Rural Telepsychiatry

Telepsychiatry is the use of telecommunications technology to connect patients and health care providers, permitting effective diagnosis, education, treatment, consultation, transfer of medical data, research, and other health care activities. Telepsychiatry has been used as a partial solution to the problem of limited psychiatric services for clinics and hospitals in remote areas or areas underserved by psychiatrists and other mental health care specialists. In the United States, eastern Oregon's RodeoNet telepsychiatry program and the telemedicine program of the Kansas University Medical Center, which has a psychiatric component, are excellent models. Telepsychiatric applications can be cost-effective, but careful evaluation is needed.