CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 183Telemedicine and Telehealth ImplementationCOVID-19 and Mental HealthDental Research and COVID-19

Suddenly Becoming a “Virtual Doctor”: Experiences of Psychiatrists Transitioning to Telemedicine During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Open access
Uscher-Pines, Lori, Sousa, Jessica, Raja, Pushpa, Mehrotra, Ateev, Barnett, Michael L., Huskamp, Haiden A.·2020·Psychiatric Services
DOI 10.1176/appi.ps.202000250PMC PMC7606640
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many psychiatrists have rapidly transitioned to telemedicine. This qualitative study sought to understand how this dramatic change in delivery has affected mental health care, including modes of telemedicine psychiatrists used, barriers encountered, and future plans. The aim was to inform the ongoing COVID-19 response and pass on lessons learned to psychiatrists who are starting to offer telemedicine. METHODS: From March 31 to April 9, 2020, semistructured interviews were conducted with 20 outpatient psychiatrists practicing in five U.S. states with significant early COVID-19 activity. Inductive and deductive approaches were used to develop interview summaries, and a matrix analysis was conducted to identify and refine themes. RESULTS: At the time of the interviews, all 20 psychiatrists had been using telemedicine for 2-4 weeks. Telemedicine encompassed video visits, phone visits, or both. Although many continued to prefer in-person care and planned to return to it after the pandemic, psychiatrists largely perceived the transition positively. However, several noted challenges affecting the quality of provider-patient interactions, such as decreased clinical data for assessment, diminished patient privacy, and increased distractions in the patient's home setting. Several psychiatrists noted that their disadvantaged patients lacked reliable access to a smartphone, computer, or the Internet. Participants identified several strategies that helped them improve telemedicine visit quality. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic has driven a dramatic shift in how psychiatrists deliver care. Findings highlight that although psychiatrists expressed some concerns about the quality of these encounters, the transition has been largely positive for both patients and physicians.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1176/appi.ps.202000250

Cites

14 of 14 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Qualitative studies showed clinicians confronting their telehealth concerns during the pandemic and committing to behavior changes that improved their patients' and their own experiences.

    “Qualitative studies illustrated how clinicians faced their telehealth concerns during the pandemic and committed to behavior change that ultimately enriched the experience of their patients and themselves (Hersch et al., 2022; Uscher-Pines et al., 2020).”

    From Overcoming Clinician Technophobia: What We Learned from Our Mass Exposure to Telehealth During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2022) · cites this paper as Uscher-Pines et al., 2020

    The Lessons Learned section reports strategies psychiatrists credited with improving telemedicine visits, and the Discussion says the transition was largely positive for patients and physicians despite clinicians’ concerns. The paper does not establish that clinicians committed to behavior changes that ultimately improved both groups’ experiences; its patient findings are based on psychiatrists’ perceptions during the first weeks of the pandemic. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Uscher-Pines, L., Sousa, J., Raja, P., Mehrotra, A., Barnett, M. L., & Huskamp, H. A.
Affiliations
  • RAND Corporation, Arlington, Virginia (Uscher-Pines), and Boston (Sousa); Greater Los Angeles Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Los Angeles (Raja); Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston (Mehrotra, Huskamp); Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston (Mehrotra); Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston (Barnett).
  • RAND Corporation (US)
ORCID
Venue
Psychiatric Services
Publisher
American Psychiatric Association Publishing
Published
2020-11-01
Volume
71
Issue
11
Pages
1143-1150
ISSN
  • 0022-1597 (ISSN-L)
  • 1075-2730
  • 1557-9700
DOI
10.1176/appi.ps.202000250
PMC
PMC7606640
OpenAlex
W3085680681
Cited by
183
References
14
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 38 · 2022: 36 · 2021: 49 · 2020: 13
FWCI
25.45
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Psychiatric Services (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH112829)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Telemedicine and Telehealth Implementation
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
  • Health Sciences › Dentistry › General Dentistry › Dental Research and COVID-19
Keywords
telemedicine, COVID-19 pandemic, video consultation, telephone visits, provider-patient interaction, barriers to telehealth, digital divide, patient privacy, mental health service delivery
MeSH terms
COVID-19, Delivery of Health Care, Humans, Interviews as Topic, Outpatients, Pneumonia, Viral, Psychiatry, United States, Telemedicine, Coronavirus Infections, Qualitative Research, Pandemics

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review