11 Innovations in Psychiatry Resulting From the Pandemic

Availability of psychiatrists via teleconferencing at community health clinics in rural and suburban areas to reduce the need for patients to travel and to reduce pressure on psychiatric clinics in cities.

Mobile teams consisting of psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, psychiatric social workers, and psychologists dispatched to address mental health issues and dispense medications in the community, therefore preventing susceptible populations from travelling to high risk areas.

Clinical protocols are being developed and individualized with the goal of judicious use of evaluation and treatment facilities available in hospitals.

Upscaling of anti-infectious disease measures in psychiatric hospitals, halfway homes, and homes for patients who are intellectually disabled. These updated protocols should be adapted and sustained to ensure better physical health in these subgroups.

Michael and Enid Balint were psychoanalysts in London who, in the late 1050s, started a new round table method for general practitioners to improve doctor-patient relationships, thereby improving their relational skills. These groups can be used to facilitate narrative and reflective group discussions, which can promote identifying difficulties faced in different situations such as breaking bad news, death, dying, bereavement, and brainstorming possible solutions.

Shifting conferences to online platforms has allowed a reduction of organizational, accommodation, and travel costs and increased attendance. Organizational meetings and conference can continue to be done virtually.

Shifting conferences to online platforms has allowed a reduction of organizational, accommodation, and travel costs and increased attendance. Organizational meetings and conference can continue to be done virtually.

Corporations are appointing psychiatrists and psychologists to help tackle turmoil among employees due to social distancing and working remotely; these workers will also require mental health support to deal with the aftermath of the pandemic.Many journals and libraries have made access to online content free, minimizing blocks to academic and research activities and enriching knowledge, clinical skills, and the quality of research by providing a large amount of previously inaccessible data.

Prioritizing in-patient beds, analyzing capacity for consent for admission and treatment, developing guidelines, which can be applied in future epidemics, natural disasters, or any other acute crisis.

Procedures for consent for video and telephone consultations, providing e-prescriptions for psychotropics, providing take-home supplies of opioid substitution medications, caring for individuals in prisons and in detention with mental illness are some of the challenges being addressed, which will provide guidance in the future as well.

Basic care such as administering long acting injectables, white blood cell count monitoring for those on clozapine, testing lithium and valproate levels, managing acute behavioral problems can be provided by community health staff at the patients’ home (with necessary precautions for personal protection of HCW), thus obviating the need for travel to high-risk areas. Enhancing home-based care can especially be helpful in elderly individuals with dementia, children with autism, and highly symptomatic patients with aggression or wandering risk, those on multiple psychotropic medications, who require intensive care.

For more on this topic, see Necessity Is Often the Mother of Innovation: Lessons for Psychiatry From COVID-19, on which this slideshow is based.