Mental health telemedicine was off to a slow start – then the pandemic happened
In the spring of 2020, COVID-19 brought rising levels of stress, anxiety and depression. But stay-at-home orders and a national emergency prompted many psychiatric and psychotherapy offices to shut down and cancel in-person appointments.
The country needed a robust — and fast — transition to mental health telemedicine. And the pandemic turned out to be just the thing to make it happen.
Changing tech, old idea
I was skeptical of telemedicine in 2015 when I began working at Wayne State University as a psychiatrist and researcher in the medical school. At that time, the department of psychiatry and its affiliated clinics were using telemedicine in primary and emergency care and for substance use recovery.