A Guide to Mental Health for Healthcare Workers

This past year, we have spent countless hours celebrating our healthcare heroes. We are so grateful to everyone who has worked tirelessly to fight the coronavirus pandemic and all of the challenges it has presented. However, we know gratitude alone is not enough — healthcare workers are physically and emotionally exhausted, and they need a helping hand. A recent survey done by Mental Health America showed 93% of healthcare workers were experiencing high stress levels, and 76% were feeling the symptoms of burnout. Healthcare workers are absolutely essential to keeping our society up and running, but they need support and relief from the stress of their daily work.

Read on to learn more about the mental health challenges facing healthcare workers, as well as what they (and their organizations) can do to take care of themselves.

Healthcare workers face a unique set of mental health challenges

Healthcare workers are on the front lines every single day. Whether providing physical health services in an emergency department or behavioral health services in a psychiatric unit, they are constantly face-to-face with challenging and tiring work. Behavioral health providers in particular deal with difficult, heavy subject matter so often they can become desensitized to their work — or end up taking it home with them after clocking out.

During COVID-19, these challenges only amplified. Visits to the emergency room drastically increased, particularly for children and adolescents. Rates of suicide and substance relapse have both skyrocketed. And, the already high demand for psychiatric providers grew even higher as the U.S. faced a mental health crisis. Through it all, providers started seeing more and more patients in crisis, all while trying to manage their own personal lives and health — a combination that can lead to burnout.

If healthcare providers are struggling with their mental health, they’re not going to be able to take care of others as well. Some of the most common symptoms of burnout are isolation and avoidance. Providers may start to withdraw from their teams, becoming less involved in the workplace and less enthusiastic about clocking in every day. They may also avoid seeking care, convinced they can deal with their mental health challenges all on their own — which can lead to difficulty with focusing, concentrating, and decision making.

Healthcare providers need to keep up with their own mental health to ensure they are making the best decisions for their patients.

Provider burnout affects both providers and their patients

Many providers fall into the trap of thinking they’re not as susceptible to behavioral health conditions as their patients are. After all, they’re trained mental health professionals. However, no one is immune to mental health conditions or challenges — even psychiatrists and behavioral therapists.

If you are in a leadership role within your organization, consider taking preventative measures to ensure your providers are getting the support and resources they need. Some warning signs someone may be struggling with burnout are:

  • They are more irritable than normal
  • They aren’t attending team meetings, and seem to be withdrawing themself
  • They lose interest in activities or job tasks they used to enjoy
  • They are making more mistakes on the job
  • They seem to be more and more tired every day

A lot of provider burnout comes from being overworked, and some level of burnout is almost inevitable after the past year. However, it’s important to give your team the rest they need. Encourage your healthcare workers to prioritize both their physical and mental health and allow them to take time away from work when they need it.

One of the most important things you can do is have an open line of communication with your team and set realistic expectations for them. Being a healthcare professional is a challenging job, and your team should have a clear picture of what that looks like within your organization.

Resources are available to help

Fortunately, there are online resources readily available to help both providers and organizations dealing with burnout. One of the best sources is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Check out their comprehensive guide on dealing with stress and compassion fatigue and dive into what compassion fatigue looks like in providers.

Another resource available to your organization is telepsychiatry. Many organizations struggle with provider burnout because the few behavioral health care workers they have on staff are overworked. At Iris Telehealth, we understand the shortage of behavioral health care workers and want to work with your organization to bridge the gap. We recruit the best psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners from around the country and connect them with organizations in need.

Healthcare workers: let yourself rest

Mental Health America’s recent study on provider burnout gave us the startling statistic that 82% of healthcare workers feel more emotionally exhausted now than they did just a few months ago. Even more startling is over 40% of those participants said they didn’t feel like they had adequate emotional support. You should never feel ashamed to reach out for help, regardless of your profession. We’d like to leave you with a resource list in case you ever do feel the need to get help:

We understand that the healthcare industry is physically and emotionally taxing, and we’re so grateful to providers everywhere for all that they do. If your organization is feeling the weight of increased numbers of patients and burnt-out providers, contact us today. We’d love to talk to you about the difference telepsychiatry can make in your practice!

How to Deal With Amplified Holiday Depression During COVID-19

The holidays are supposed to be a time of joy, but for many people the holiday season is a time of sadness and loneliness. With the isolation, health concerns, and financial challenges brought by COVID-19, mental health professionals expect holiday depression to be much worse this season.

“There is a greater degree and intensity of anxiety, stress, and depression because of the pandemic,” says Thomas Milam, M.D., a board-certified psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer of Iris Telehealth.

“Those who were previously struggling with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse are especially vulnerable at this time,” he says. “We don’t do well when we’re alone and suffering from depression and anxiety, so the isolation to prevent the spread of COVID-19 makes depression more difficult.”

For those who have lost jobs, the pandemic’s financial strain is also contributing to stress and anxiety. “I have admitted people to the hospital who are suicidal because they are tired of the stress of COVID, and tired of the financial pressure on their family without seeing an end in sight. They feel helpless about being able to do anything about it,” Dr. Milam says.

Chronic stress makes certain health conditions, including high blood pressure and diabetes, worse because of the inflammatory chemicals produced by the brain when we are stressed that circulate throughout the body.

How You Can Cope with Added Stress this Holiday Season

Dr. Milam has witnessed resilience on the part of patients and their families who have adapted to their situation. Many have been using video platforms, such as Zoom and FaceTime, to keep in touch. He notes that with the upcoming COVID-19 vaccines, there is reason for optimism that 2021 will be a better year.

In the meantime, Dr. Milam offers these tips for coping with the current impact of COVID-19 and holiday-related stress:

  • It’s okay to “own” your stress. You don’t need to be stoic or pretend everything is fine. Expressing your feelings with family and friends is especially important during times like these.
  • Make an effort to connect with people via phone or text to find out how they are doing.
  • Don’t abandon healthy habits. Exercise helps. Take a walk outside. Do some stretching or find online classes such as yoga. Eat healthier foods, including fruit and vegetables.
  • Take slow, deep breaths three times each day to increase your feelings of well-being. Also, listening to music, meditation and prayer can be helpful.
  • Try to make someone else’s day brighter with a small act of kindness or a compliment. Doing something positive can help you feel better.
  • Avoid excessive news and social media that increase your stress and worry.
  • Be careful about alcohol use, substance abuse, and long-term anti-anxiety medications. Prescriptions for anti-anxiety drugs such as benzodiazepines have increased by 30 percent since the start of the pandemic. For short-term use, they are fine, but they can be habit-forming when taken long-term.
  • Seek professional help if needed. Symptoms of depression include lack of energy, trouble sleeping or concentrating, and having little interest in things you normally enjoy. If those feelings persist for more than two weeks, it’s wise to seek help. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is open 24/7 for anyone in a suicidal crisis or emotional distress.

Tips for Helping Children

Children also may be experiencing anxiety. Symptoms include irritability, wanting to be held more than usual, or having stomach discomfort or headaches.

Dr. Milam offers these tips for reducing anxiety among children:

  • Encourage children to express how they’re feeling.
  • Reassure them that things will be okay.
  • Maintain routines and keep to everyday schedules, such as eating and going to bed at the same time.
  • Communicate frequently. Text older children throughout the day, even when they are in the same house, and ask them how they’re doing.

People who need to be cared for by a psychiatrist often face challenges accessing that care due to the nationwide shortage of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, especially in rural areas. One bright spot from the disruption caused by COVID-19 is the dramatic rise in the use of telehealth services, which increases access to medical professionals, including psychiatrists and other mental health providers.

In data published by the Telehealth Impact Physician Survey of almost 1,600 health care professionals, more than 75 percent said that telehealth enabled them to provide quality care for patients with COVID-related mental health and other health issues.

Telepsychiatry Has Opened up a New Way of Providing Care

“With telepsychiatry, care is now patient-centric rather than clinic-centric, and studies indicate that patient satisfaction is high,” says Dr. Milam. He adds that providing patients with easier access to care also has reduced the number of emergency department visits for mental health issues.

At Iris Telehealth, we work to further increase behavioral health accessibility by connecting community mental health centers, community health centers, hospitals, and health systems with telepsychiatry providers. If you’re looking to speak with a psychiatrist via telemedicine, contact your primary care physician or your local health center. If you’re a health organization looking to expand your psychiatric services, reach out to us and we’ll get the conversation started.

5 Ways to Track Vitals Safely and Remotely

Telepsychiatry has expanded rapidly in recent years to meet the demand for psychiatric care. As patients and providers became more familiar and comfortable with the virtual care space during the public health emergency (PHE), they encountered some unanticipated hurdles. One of these hurdles was figuring out how to safely collect patients’ vital signs when they may no longer be required to go to on-site offices and clinics to receive care.

The following five points outline opportunities providers and organizations have to adjust their operations for safely and effectively collecting patients’ vital signs and other data with telehealth and remote patient monitoring.

1. Have individuals acquire their own remote patient monitoring equipment

Patients may acquire home-based remote patient monitoring equipment, such as scales and blood pressure cuffs, for personal or shared use with their families. Like a family thermometer, remote patient monitoring equipment in the home will likely become more common and affordable over time. Increasingly, the equipment has Bluetooth capabilities. Data readings can be linked to mobile devices for personal tracking. The data can then be uploaded into secure patient portals. In these portals, patient data is shared with an individual’s healthcare team.

Many local pharmacies and large retail stores now offer on-site equipment and services for patients needing home equipment to obtain accurate routine vital signs like blood pressure, pulse, and weight. This equipment is becoming increasingly available in community spaces such as schools, workplaces, and local community and public health centers.

As smartwatches and fitness tracking devices continue to increase in popularity, many of these wearables can also be used for telehealth and remote patient monitoring devices, involving minimal restrictions or impact on a person’s lifestyle. From wristbands and armbands to chest straps, patches, and clothing-based monitors, these devices offer the potential for more regular and consistent readings of many vital signs throughout the day and night. Some devices even track heart rhythms as long as the devices are worn and powered up.

2. Purchase and send equipment to patients

While store-bought equipment like digital thermometers, blood pressure cuffs, and diabetes monitoring equipment have become more accurate, reliable, and affordable, they are generally not cheap. While patients with Healthcare Savings Accounts (HSAs) can increasingly use those funds to purchase remote patient monitoring equipment, some clinics have found grants to support purchasing and mailing remote patient monitoring equipment for patients to use at home.

This option increases the accessibility and affordability of the equipment for patients, particularly those who the pandemic and inflation have financially impacted.. Such equipment may require ongoing updates, upgrades, or servicing to maintain accurate readings, so it is important for patients and their healthcare teams to understand and comply with all the terms of use of any equipment used for remote patient monitoring purposes.

3. Extend times between patients for in-office vitals

In locations where clinic offices are open and staffed, before and after normal office hours, patients can have their vitals taken in the office on a “drop-in” or “drive-by” basis. Patients should ask their healthcare providers if these options are available at their local clinic, and discuss the frequency and type of services that would best meet their patient’s healthcare needs and goals.

4. Utilize information from other providers

Coordinating patient care with other providers at different healthcare sites can be challenging. Still, increasingly Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and EHR-based patient portals can promote effective and HIPAA-compliant sharing of important health information such as routine vital signs, glucose monitoring, and other important patient health data.

Suppose patients are seeing different providers or specialists in other locations. In that case, even if those visits are conducted remotely, the patient should ask the clinic staff how their vital signs, and other health information, can be safely shared with their other healthcare providers. Sometimes this request is as simple as signing a Release of Information to allow secure data sharing between providers.

5. Adjust requirements and expectations for vital signs

In the past, it has been reasonable to expect vital sign checks every visit for every patient, especially for patients seeking care for physical health issues. As hospitals, clinics, and healthcare providers and their staff continue to adjust their workflows to include remote patient monitoring, telehealth, and “hospital-at-home” models, expectations for patients and providers also need to evolve.

Providers should carefully consider which patients it is medically necessary to obtain vitals from and at what frequency. This consideration is critical since getting this information from every patient on every visit is much more challenging in a telehealth setting.

Empowering patients to be informed and involved in their ongoing healthcare decision-making and workflows, including vitals management, is critical to meeting the demands of patients, providers, and healthcare organizations.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can incorporate telehealth and remote patient monitoring into your behavioral health approach, contact us today. We’d love to chat through your options and help you determine the best steps forward in achieving the best patient care possible.

The Real Reason Your Patients Won’t Love Telepsychiatry

One of the biggest concerns people have about implementing telepsychiatry is: Will my patients like it?

It’s an understandable concern and a natural thought process. With any new change, there are obstacles and challenges to overcome. If you care about your patients as much as we care about ours, you want the best for them. For many, telepsychiatry seems like a great solution, but one of the biggest reasons they don’t move forward with it is concern about how patients will respond to it.

In 2018, Iris Telehealth performed more than 200,000 patient telepsychiatry visits. We partner with dozens of healthcare organizations around the United States to help bring telepsychiatry to their patients. The statistics regarding patient interest in and satisfaction with telemedicine speak for themselves:

  • 74 percent of patients say they are open to a virtual visit.
  • 19 percent of patients have already conducted a virtual encounter.
  • Over 95 percent of our patients are satisfied with our telepsychiatry.

What holds patients back from virtual healthcare

When you ask, “Will my patients like telepsychiatry?” what you’re really asking is, “Will they be afraid of it?”

At the end of the day, fear is what really makes people opposed to change. It’s only natural that something people aren’t familiar with might cause them to be afraid to try it. Admittedly, sometimes people are wary of telepsychiatry because they don’t understand how it works. Fear of the unknown can play a big role in whether or not patients are comfortable with telepsychiatry.

When Christopher Columbus sailed across the ocean, people actually feared he would fall off the edge of the earth. Studies show that more than 70 percent of startups fail, which is why some people fear taking entrepreneurial strides. Even being afraid of the dark can correlate to fearing the unknown. This kind of uncertainty is common among many people, particularly those who might struggle with mental health issues such as anxiety.

But the truth is, the fear of telepsychiatry is easy to overcome.

Consider how often you use technology. You’re probably reading this on your phone or your laptop, and when you’re done, you might watch a movie on Netflix or Facetime a family member. In the past decade, technology has rapidly become a part of everything we do, and we have learned that it’s not always something to fear. In fact, many would argue it enriches our lives by allowing us to consume more information, connect with people far away from us, and have more access to… well, everything at the touch of our fingers.

Rest assured, we’ve worked with dozens of healthcare organizations whose patients love telepsychiatry. If any of your patients don’t love telepsych, it will be a small number who simply don’t understand how it works. However, there are easy ways to help them see the value in it rather than seeing the fear.

How to get patients on board with Telepsych

Our partners have several tried and true methods to help patients overcome any fear associated with telepsychiatry and become as excited about it as you are:

Create educational materials

Some healthcare organizations find it valuable to have educational materials in their waiting rooms to teach patients about telepsychiatry. This can be as simple as trifold brochures or one-pagers not only explaining how it works, but also why it’s a great option.

Have a conversation with them about what it is

If you’re speaking with a patient who is hesitant about telepsychiatry, ask them how often they use FaceTime or Skype. If they’ve used either of these before, take the time to remind them that telepsychiatry is just like video-chatting with a friend or family member. The only difference is that their doctor is on the other end.

Let other patients convince them

If you decide to create educational materials for your waiting room, include patient testimonials about how they loved telepsychiatry. Instead of hearing about it from you, they can learn about it from other people who have walked in their shoes before.

Introduce them to their telepsychiatrist

When healthcare organizations partner with us, we offer to create an introductory piece of marketing material about their doctor. This includes a photo of the doctor, as well as an article about their life, how long they’ve been a doctor, and some fun facts about them. This humanizes the process and makes it less scary for any patients who have hesitations.

Your patients will love Telepsych

You might have a handful of patients who won’t love the idea of telepsychiatry at first, but now you know that there are simple methods to remind them it’s not as scary as they might think. Our partners have found that in the end, their patients love using telepsychiatry. In fact, our telepsychiatrists have a 97 percent satisfaction rate!

About Iris Telehealth

Iris Telehealth is a telepsychiatry provider organization made up of the highest quality psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners. Our mission is to provide underserved communities with access to the best mental health specialists and prescribers. We are owned and operated by doctors who understand what patients need and have earned a reputation for providing outstanding customer service. Iris values building strong professional relationships with our partners and their staff. We are dedicated to understanding your organization’s needs and operational goals because we recognize that your success is critical to our own.

Iris Telehealth has helped countless hospitals and community health organizations across the country add telepsychiatry to their list of services. We believe everyone should have access to compassionate mental health care, and we have made it our mission to find innovative, affordable ways of making this possible!