6.1 ENHANCING THE MODEL: TELEPSYCHIATRY WITHIN EMERGENCY CARE AT CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL COLORADO

Carubia, Beau

Objectives: The objectives of this presentation are to: 1) describe the many barriers to timely psychiatric emergency consultation, both before and in the midst of a pandemic;and 2) describe innovative teleconsultative services afforded to emergency department (ED) and urgent care (UC) settings at a large, tertiary care pediatric hospital. Methods: Attendees will learn about telepsychiatry services developed and utilized at Children’s Hospital Colorado (CHCO) prior to the initiation of the COVID-19 pandemic. A brief description and timeline of the systems of care issues initially identified will be shared as well as a description of the initial model of telepsychiatry services implemented at CHCO. The initial goals of telepsychiatry utilization were to decrease the number of transports from urgent cares and from satellite emergency rooms to the main emergency room located on Anschutz Medical Campus for mental health evaluation, and to decrease the overall wait times for evaluation. Attendees will then learn about how this model of telepsychiatry was enhanced at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic by the utilization of home telepsychiatry and onsite telepsychiatry, allowing decreased exposure risk to COVID-19 and having substantial positive impact on the health of the workforce to continue to care for high volumes of patients. Results: This presenter will share data showing the initial success in accomplishing goals of decreasing transfers and length of stay with the telepsychiatry model prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. This presenter will then: 1) share data encompassing the total number of consults conducted using telecommunication in the different elements/models described above;and 2) review feedback from onsite staff, clinicians working in the tele model, and some patient/family experiences. Conclusions: CHCO successfully enhanced its telepsychiatry crisis evaluations to accommodate many of the unique clinical challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented. Many lessons learned from these enhancements will likely be integrated into our standard of care in the years to come and will far outlast the pandemic itself. ADMIN, TVM, OTH