Integrating Telepsychiatry Into Rural Primary Care for Upstream Prevention: Feasibility Case Study of the Faith Net Program.

INTRODUCTION: For decades, there has been a deficit of mental health services in rural areas of the United States. Beyond that longstanding need, the COVID-19 pandemic has reportedly increased the prevalence of unmet mental health needs among adults. Presently, many non-critical but urgent mental health concerns are first identified in rural emergency departments. This report describes the results of a 6-month feasibility case study of a program to integrate telepsychiatric triage "upstream" from emergency departments in rural primary care. METHODS: At routine primary care encounters in a single midwestern rural county, patients at risk for moderate-severe or severe depression, expressing thoughts of self-harm, or otherwise presenting in a way that raised clinical concern for mental or behavioral health, were referred to on-site telepsychiatric triage. Patients whose triage indicated further concern were provided six psychiatric and/or social work encounters for stabilization and treatment. RESULTS: 68 patients were referred to telepsychiatric triage during the pilot study (.85% of the estimated adult population in the county). Of those, only two had a documented mental/behavioral health diagnosis prior to triage, but 46 were diagnosed with at least one psychiatric disorder during the program. CONCLUSIONS: This model of telepsychiatric triage was feasible in rural primary care and may support identification and mitigation of unmet mental health needs.

Reflections on project ECHO: qualitative findings from five different ECHO programs.

Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) was developed in 2003 as an innovative model to facilitate continuing education and professional development. ECHO emphasizes 'moving knowledge, not people.' To accomplish this, ECHO programs use virtual collaboration and case-based learning to allow practitioners, including those in rural and underserved areas, to receive specialist training. The ECHO model has expanded rapidly and is now used in 44 countries. Preliminary research on ECHO's efficacy and effectiveness has shown promising results, but evidence remains limited and appropriate research outcomes have not been clearly defined. To improve the evidence basis for ECHO, this study of 5 ECHO programs (cancer prevention/survivorship, integrated pain management, hepatitis C, HIV, and LGBTQ+ health care elucidated actionable insights about the ECHO programs and directions in which future evaluations and research might progress. This was a qualitative study following COREQ standards. A trained interviewer conducted 10 interviews and 5 focus groups with 25 unique, purposively sampled ECHO attendees (2 interviews and 1 focus group for each of the 5 programs). Data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using the general inductive approach, then reviewed for reliability. We identified four major categories (reasons to join ECHO, value of participating in ECHO, ways to improve ECHO, and barriers to participation) composed of 23 primary codes. We suggest that thematic saturation was achieved, and a coherent narrative about ECHO emerged for discussion. Participants frequently indicated they received valuable learning experiences and thereby changed their practice; rigorous trials of learning and patient-level outcomes are warranted. This study also found support for the idea that the ECHO model should be studied for its role in convening communities of practice and reducing provider isolation as an outcome in itself. Additional implications, including for interprofessional education and model evolution, were also identified and discussed.