Community and Outpatient Settings

Abstract

Community and outpatient settings in which a geriatric patient receives medical care represent a large percentage of medical settings and can be quite diverse in patient populations, function, physical environment, staffing, and role and/or access to a geriatric psychiatrist. For example, primary care physicians caring for the geriatric patient can often encounter psychiatric crisis issues that necessitate the use of the on-call psychiatry skills offered through on-call medical services, the services of mobile mental health crisis teams or local emergency department services. On-call geriatric psychiatry in community or an outpatient setting can be limited or guided by geriatric psychiatrist’s availability, expectations, or service agreement. While there may be similar presentations among the patients being served in general community settings such as a primary care physician’s office or walk-in clinic, this chapter will focus on the outpatient or community setting with an affiliated geriatric psychiatrist.