Virtual Behavioural Medicine Program: A Novel Model of Care for Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Dementia1

Background: Patients with severe neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) due to dementia are often uprooted from their familiar environments in long-term care or the community and transferred to emergency departments, acute care hospitals, or specialized behavioral units which can exacerbate NPS. To address this issue, we developed the Virtual Behavioural Medicine Program (VBM), an innovative model of virtual care designed to support management of patients with NPS in their own environment. Objective: To determine efficacy of VBM in reducing admission to a specialized inpatient neurobehavioral unit for management of NPS. Methods: We reviewed outcomes in the first consecutive 95 patients referred to VBM. Referrals were classified into two groups. In one group, patients were referred to VBM with a simultaneous application to an inpatient Behavioural Neurology Unit (BNU). The other group was referred only to VBM. The primary outcome was reduction in proportion of patients requiring admission to the BNU regardless of whether they were referred to the BNU or to VBM alone. Results: For patients referred to VBM plus the BNU, the proportion needing admission to the BNU was reduced by 60.42%. For patients referred to VBM alone, it was 68.75%. Conclusion: VBM is a novel virtual neurobehavioral unit for treatment of NPS. Although the sample size was relatively small, especially for the VBM group, the data suggest that this program is a game changer that can reduce preventable emergency department visits and acute care hospital admissions. VBM is a scalable model of virtual care that can be adopted worldwide.