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Telehealth transition in a comprehensive care unit for eating disorders: Challenges and long‐term benefits
Author(s) -
Datta Nandini,
Derenne Jennifer,
Sanders Mary,
Lock James D.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
international journal of eating disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.785
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1098-108X
pISSN - 0276-3478
DOI - 10.1002/eat.23348
Subject(s) - telehealth , pandemic , eating disorders , social distance , unit (ring theory) , ambulatory care , population , medicine , psychology , telepsychiatry , covid-19 , public health , psychiatry , nursing , medical emergency , health care , gerontology , telemedicine , disease , environmental health , political science , mathematics education , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law
The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic has forced many eating disorder medical stabilization units to consider adjustments that uphold both the quality of care delivered to patients while also observing social distancing public health directives for patients and staff. To date, inpatient facilities for eating disorders (both medical stabilization units and higher level of care facilities) have not needed to consider how to translate services to electronic platforms, given that most of these programs have in‐person staff. We outline our transition to telehealth broadly, emphasizing some unexpected benefits of using telehealth services that we plan on integrating into our work‐flow post COVID‐19. These may be useful for other higher level of care eating disorder programs, including medical stabilization units, residential, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient programs. We also highlight aspects of transition that have been more challenging for this particular patient population, warranting the need for in‐person services.