At CommonSpirit Health, Telebehavioral Care Decreases Length of Stay, Cuts Costs

This led the health system to add telebehavioral health services in its hospitals to both increase access to behavioral health professionals and meet standards of care recommended by the Joint Commission. "A lot of investigation and work was put into choosing a platform that is reliable, invisible to the patient and easy to use for the provider," said John Mackenzie, telemedicine network clinical program manager and telebehavioral health specialist at CommonSpirit Health. "Teladoc Health provided us with the software and devices enabling us to extend behavioral health services to those areas of need," he added. Ultimately, the technology eliminates the challenges of space and time when the health system has reduced access to specialty providers. It enables the health system to leverage a single provider across multiple locations to reduce wait times for patients needing to be seen.

"We can provide specialty services as fast as possible, render the appropriate clinical opinion and enable physicians at the bedside to make high quality decisions on behalf of the patient," Mackenzie said. "We scheduled telebehavioral health rounds and rapid response to provide a disposition recommendation, usually to discharge or transfer the patient," Mackenzie explained. "This allows the telehealth network to provide 24/7 consultative support services to meet all behavioral health needs," he added. "The telehealth network standard of care is to respond to all emergency department behavioral health consult requests within 60 minutes, have actionable recommendations within 90 minutes and empower local providers to create an ED disposition plan within the first four hours," he continued. When using telebehavioral health, it is vital to find a method that can quickly and seamlessly connect providers with patients.