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Northern Tele-psychiatry Initiative
| Topics |
Mental health
Youth
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| States served |
New Hampshire
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| Description |
The Northern Tele-psychiatry Initiative will provide access to child psychiatry through telemedicine in northern New Hampshire. The Northern Tele-psychiatry Initiative will improve the mental health of children and teens, reduce the number of admissions to child psychiatric in-patient units, and help prevent the inappropriate prescribing of psychotropic medications by primary care practitioners to children and adolescents.
The Northern Tele-psychiatry Initiative covers a medically underserved area. Currently, there are no child psychiatrists in northern New Hampshire, geographically 43 percent of the rural northernmost portion of the State. The target population, which is 98 percent Caucasian, is 24,927 children, age 0 to 17, who are residents of northern Grafton, Carroll, and Coos Counties-a region that covers 4,447 square miles. Due to the loss of traditional industries in northern New Hampshire, the primary jobs are low-paying (an average of less than $23,000) in the tourism, food service, and retail industries. Access barriers to services include long distances outside of northern New Hampshire to private child psychiatrists or child psychiatric in-patient units; year-long waits for evaluation by private child psychiatrists; lost income to caregivers resulting from the geographic isolation and the lack of local child psychiatrist. |
| Services offered |
The project plans on establishing videoconferencing systems in Wolfeboro and Berlin in Year 1, increasing the number of systems to Conway and Colebrook in Year 2 and installing the final system in Littleton in Year 3. The Northern Tele-psychiatry Initiative will be examining options for changes to the New Hampshire Medicaid State plan and third party payers for telemedicine. The Northern Tele-psychiatry Initiative will also promote the use of child tele-psychiatry through education of community leaders and family members. Finally, the Northern Tele-psychiatry Initiative will evaluate the project on an ongoing basis to ensure the satisfaction of the child tele-psychiatry treatments.
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| Replication |
The Northern Tele-psychiatry Initiative consortium members are Northern Human Services, the lead applicant; the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of Behavioral Health; NAMI New Hampshire, and the Behavioral Health Network. |
| Source |
Rural Health Outreach Grantee Directory, 2006
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| Contact person |
Michael Kasson
Northern Human Services
87 Washington Street
Conway, New Hampshire 03818
Phone: (603) 447-3347
Fax: (603) 447-8893
E-Mail: mkasson@northernhs.org
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| Date added |
January 22, 2007 |
Summaries of success stories are provided by RAC for your convenience. Please contact the success story contact person directly for the most complete and current information.
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