During the recent blizzard, I did more telepsychiatry in one day than I’ve done before, so I thought I would share some comments about doing a lot of it in one day, rather than a few scattered visits per day.
I really didn’t notice much difference between staying at home and doing several hours worth of telepsychiatry versus doing face to face visits in my office. However, I was acutely aware of how important it is for me to get myself organized at home and how useful a dual monitor would be when I get around to buying one.
In my practice office, I’ve got the supplies I need at my fingertips, and have routines for the usual things like writing and printing prescriptions, making return appointments and taking payment.
I didn’t have any of these things really set up at home, and I really noticed what a difference it makes for me to have things better organized. This wasn’t really much of a surprise, but I did notice one thing that was much better at home: my efficiency at using my computer and doing telepsychiatry at the same time.
At work, I typically use a desktop computer to do Skype, and type on a laptop to take notes. This is a little silly, I know, but I’m usually using the laptop with my face to face patients, and so sticking with the laptop at work means doing what I’m already doing anyway.
A couple of years ago I bought a 30 inch computer monitor. With this much screen space, I can easily use Skype on one side of the screen and do notes on the other side. (The laptop I use at my practice was locked in the file cabinet at my practice when the blizzard came, and I didn’t have access to it the day I was doing so many Skype visits.)
Telepsychiatry intrinsically requires some multi-tasking if you are taking notes while you see the patient: you have to look at the patient most of the time, but you also have to look at where you are typing part of the time so you can correct your typing.
Having a big screen or two monitors really makes a difference when I need to do more than one thing on the computer at one time and be efficient about it. When I’m talking and typing, I really don’t have time to be moving the mouse all over the place and clicking icons to switch from one window to another.
I’ve been told that one of the best means that many people can use to increase their productivity on a computer is to go to dual monitors or a big screen.
I’m very certain that this is true, and I would suggest that people doing telepsychiatry really go for a dual monitor system.
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