Rural Vets Get Care via TeleMedicine

Reuters ran an interesting story last month about the use of telemedicine to deliver health care to rural vets. The story, For rural vets with PTSD, Telemedicine may help is based on a study published in the November, 2014 JAMA Psychiatry

The Reuters article explains a new study that shows using telephones and videochat can be helpful in the treatment of PTSD for these vets. This most recent study  “included 265 middle-aged vets with severe PTSD symptoms at one of the outpatient clinics without onsite psychiatrists or psychologists from 2009 through 2011.” Recruited from 3 different areas of the country, 50% of the vets “received the outpatient clinic’s ordinary care” while the remainder had access to “an additional care team at a larger medical center via telemedicine.”  This team included a variety of professionals, such as pharmacists and nurse care managers who called the vets, and video-chat consults with psychiatrists who subsequently provided “feedback and treatment recommendations to providers at the clinic through electronic medical records.” Video chat was also used by psychologists for “cognitive processing therapy, a specific behavioral therapy developed to treat PTSD…”

The story notes that the technology isn’t right for every vet, but a large number in the study were happy with it and that further research is needed to in order to determine the path to widespread use.

The JAMA article offers this conclusion “Telemedicine-based collaborative care can successfully engage rural veterans in evidence-based psychotherapy to improve PTSD outcomes.” The JAMA article abstract is available here, and the full article is available by subscription or purchase.