Nearly 500 Chicago-area veterans are visiting their mental-health professionals using telemental health services at their local VA clinics. About 24,000 U.S. veterans sought telemental health care in 2007, and the trend is on the rise.

Here’s more from Chicago Tribune reporter Jo Napolitano:

Veterans use real-time video to access doctors
One-on-one videoconferencing is becoming a tool for mental health care

By Jo Napolitano | Tribune reporter
10:18 PM CDT, June 9, 2008

Managing her bipolar disorder is difficult enough for Navy veteran Elizabeth Trznadel without the added burden of an hourlong drive every time she needs to see her doctor.

So instead of traveling from her Oak Forest home to Hines Veterans Affairs Hospital in Maywood, Trznadel visits a site in Manteno where she can consult with her doctor one-on-one through special video technology. She said she enjoys the quieter drive through less congested roads.

“You can express yourself just as freely as if he was sitting right in the room with you,” she said. “It’s super helpful. There is not the long wait to see the doctor, so that keeps you from getting stressed out.”

Some 495 Chicago-area veterans use “telemental health services” at six VA community-based outpatient clinics in Elgin, Joliet, LaSalle, Manteno, Aurora and Oak Lawn.

It allows patients access to help for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts without a prolonged car trip, which for some can trigger painful memories of hazardous roadsides in Iraq and Afghanistan. And as the technology becomes cheaper and more user-friendly, more veterans are taking advantage of it, officials say.

Last year, 24,000 veterans sought telemental health care throughout the U.S. Projections for 2008 show that 36,000 to 40,000 people will seek such treatment by year’s end.

“Many researchers have done studies on telemental health, and it stands up reliably to face-to-face service,” said Adam Darkins, chief consultant for care coordination for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

For more, read “Veterans use real-time video to access doctors.”

Mental health administrators often cite scarce resources and location as major contributors to why more people aren’t treated more often. Now, with affordable and reliable high definition solutions like those offered by Face to Face Live, videoconferencing offers more than just the possibility of improved services to patients with limited access to care.

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