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eConsult for psychiatrists treating perinatal women with serious mental illnesses: a Los Angeles County pilot project
eConsult for psychiatrists treating perinatal women with serious mental illnesses: a Los Angeles County pilot project
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Issue brief (California HealthCare Foundation)
- Author(s):
- Dossett, Emily C., author
Benitez, Christopher, author
Garcia, Natalia, author - Contributor(s):
- California HealthCare Foundation, issuing body.
- Publication:
- [Oakland, California] : California Health Care Foundation, December 2019
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Mental Disorders
Mental Health Services
Remote Consultation
Perinatal Care
Pilot Projects
Los Angeles
United States - Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Nearly 17% of California's pregnant and postpartum women suffer from depression, anxiety, or other severe illnesses such as bipolar disorder. Most of these perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) are undetected and untreated, in part because of challenges related to screening, referral, and physician access to expert consultation. Psychiatrists, just like many other medical providers, often have questions when their perinatal patients experience serious PMADs. Should psychiatric medication be used? If so, which are safe? How should these decisions be made? Psychiatrists typically receive little to no training in reproductive psychiatry, the specialty area focused specifically on PMADs. Because of psychiatrists' lack of training in this specialty, access to expert consultation in medication management for these patients is extremely limited. A number of mechanisms have been developed to support psychiatrists in caring for perinatal women with PMADs. This paper looks at a pilot test of one such initiative in Los Angeles County, the Reproductive Psychiatric eConsult Pilot Project. The goal of the project was to increase capacity of psychiatrists within the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH) to provide medication management to women with severe PMADs. The project included conducting in-person trainings on reproductive psychiatry and launching an electronic consultation (eConsult) portal specifically for psychiatrists' questions regarding mental health care management for perinatal patients. While psychiatrists actively participated in trainings and changed practice accordingly, they were reluctant to use the eConsult platform itself. One policy proposal emerging from these findings is the use of technologies that are familiar to psychiatrists, such as phone or email, to provide access to expert support in managing perinatal women, while using an eConsult-type system to record documentation and facilitate communication across health systems.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (7 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101767955 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101767955