Emergency Telepsychiatry and the Acute Care Continuum: Creating Value Through Improved Patient Accessibility and Follow-up

Abstract

I few years ago, I coined the term, “Medicine Without Walls”1 to describe our future healthcare delivery system—an environment where patient and healthcare practitioner are unencumbered by physical location or limitations in access points due to human resource restrictions, where medical information is transferred not only between patient and clinician but also between any number of care practitioners and healthcare institutions—a world where patients have open and ready access to medical care when and where needed.