{"id":512,"date":"2012-10-11T07:57:22","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T05:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.asym.dk\/?p=512"},"modified":"2012-10-11T07:57:22","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T05:57:22","slug":"can-psychiatric-care-be-improved-by-information-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asym.dk\/index.php\/2012\/10\/11\/can-psychiatric-care-be-improved-by-information-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Psychiatric Care be Improved by IT?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Picture this: You are diagnosed with a heart problem and hospitalized to have it treated. You meet the doctor, who will be responsible for your treatment and you ask him what is going to happen to you.
\nHe is clearly only remotely interested in you, but directly addressed, he mentions that you will be operated. Otherwise he only mumbles about the fact that you’re very ill, and that you will probably never recover completely. You will get an injection and if you don’t corporate, they might consider using force to ensure that you do. Don’t worry too much, though, he says, and leaves you, clearly signalling that he’s too busy to talk to you, and that after all, you’re just the patient.
\nSuch treatment of patients would be scandalous in somatic care, but in psychiatric care all over the world, it happens routinely.
\nFortunately, things are changing. Former Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen hosts a yearly \u201dPscychatric Summit Meeting<\/a>\u201d, where users of psyhicatry and their peers get together to discuss problems, actions and trends. There are top politicians attending the meeting, but the \u201dstars\u201d are the users \u2013 or patients as we often call them.
\nHis summit meetings have already helped improving things a lot, pushing psychiatry to depart from the old paradigms of force and medicine based treatments, moving towards a user centered approach. We’re not there yet: Recently a case of systematic, life dangering, overmedication of patients in Copenhagen was revealed. But the situation is clearly improving.
\nThere’s no doubt that if we are to change psychiatric care, we need to focus on values, but we will also need new ways of treating patients, and one of the more promising trends is to employ information technology in psychiatric care.
\nWe’re not talking brain scanners or electromagnetic brain therapy machines, though. We’re not even talking neurofeedback<\/a> therapy. No, what we’re talking about is communication technology. Thats why we call it tele-psychiatry, implying the increased use of tele-communications.
\nDuring the Psychiatry Summit Meeting last Saturday October 6th, I participated in a workshop organised by the danish ADHD Foreningen<\/a> on tele-psychiatry.
\nOur hyphothesis is that tele-psychiatry could possibly improve treatments by:<\/p>\n