Video visits with mental health providers can help rural elderly still receive care without the travel

Bette Helm, right, who lives in Iowa, visits via iPad with a
psychiatric nurse practitioner in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Tony Leys, KHN)

Amid a national shortage of mental health providers, technology is providing a positive solution for older, more rural patients. "Video visits are an increasingly common way for residents of small-town nursing homes to receive mental health care," reports Tony Leys of Kaiser Health News. "Patients don't have to travel to a clinic. They don't even have to get cleaned up and leave their bedrooms. . . . Online care providers face fewer appointment cancellations, and they often can work from home. While some other telehealth services may dwindle, providers predict demand for remote mental health services will continue to increase in rural nursing homes."

Bette Helm is a patient receiving mental health video care for insomnia, Leys reports. "Helm lives in a nursing home in a central Iowa town of about 7,500 people, where mental health services are sparse. . . . She had an appointment with Ayesha Macon, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, about 800 miles away in Austin, Texas. They spoke via video, with Helm using an iPad she held on her lap while sitting in bed."

Telemedicine became more accepted during the pandemic, but it is not ideal for many medical situations. Mental health might be an exception to that idea, "Supporters of online treatment say it's a good match for mental health care, especially in settings where in-person services have been hard to arrange. They cite small-town nursing homes as prime examples," Leys adds. "The company that arranged Helm's recent appointment, Encounter Telehealth, serves more than 200 nursing homes and assisted living centers, mostly in the Midwest. About 95% of those facilities are in rural areas, said Jen Amis, president of the company, which is based in Omaha, Nebraska."

Leys reports, "Before telemedicine was available, more residents of rural nursing homes needed to be driven to a clinic in another town to see a mental health professional. That could eat up hours of staff time and add stress to the patients' lives. . . . Jonathan Neufeld, program director at the University of Minnesota, said in-person mental health care can be hard to arrange . . . . He noted the number of mental health professionals nationally has been insufficient for many years, even before the pandemic. And all kinds of rural employers, including nursing homes, face critical staffing shortages."