Telehealth Decreases Rural Emergency Department Wait Times for Behavioral Health Patients in a Group of Critical Access Hospitals

View Resource

Explores impacts of telehealth on behavioral health patients in rural emergency departments (EDs) at 4 Midwestern Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs). Compares wait time and length of stay (LOS) for 153 patients from 2005-2013 before telehealth implementation and 287 patents from 2015-2017 after telehealth implementation. Provides data on patient demographics, wait time, LOS, behavioral health diagnosis, and total costs of ED visit.

Roseanne Moody Fairchild, Shiaw-Fen Ferng-Kuo, Stephanie Laws, Hicham Rahmouni, Daniel Hardesty

Telemedicine and e-Health, 25(12), 1154-1164

12/2019

Behavioral health · Critical Access Hospitals · Emergency department and urgent care services · Statistics and data · Telehealth