Using Computers

Communicating with Clinicians

We have been working for a year to enhance the security of the electronic messages (e.g. e-mail) that we exchange with patients. Email has been very useful in the clinic but it is inherently not secure (information can be read by others) and does not meet the new federal standards for electronic information that is medical or clinical. We think we have identified the two best options that meet federal and state standards for confidentiality and that preserve as much flexibility as possible for you.

The first option involves using a physician-patient website: www.medem.com. This website allows you to confidentially e-mail any clinician at Gateway Psychiatric Services. It offers a private online health record (iHealthRecord), medical education programs and a medical library. There is a fee for every “clinical consultation” (for every message that involves a clinical question) of $30.00 that includes the charge for the clinician’s time as well as the charge for the messaging service. You have to register with this service in advance because we have to approve your request to join our site before we can exchange messages.

The second option involves using a secure website set up for you by Gateway. This website allows you to track moods, symptoms, and medication online, offers access to selected medical articles, and offers the ability to communicate confidentially with any clinician at Gateway. For this, we charge a monthly fee and then a fee for clinician time based on how much time it takes to answer questions. If you are interested in using SharePoint, please talk to your clinician for more information.

Mood Tracking

Using Microsoft's SharePoint technology Gateway can create a custom website for you that allows you to securely keep track of your mood with a simple, and customizable, questionnaire format and which also allows your clinicians to view the same information, either before or during a session. These websites also enable secure communication with clinicians. The fee for maintaining the site and for copying the information from the site into your clinical record is $25 per month. In addition, our usual policy applies in terms of charging for time spent by clinicians between sessions answering questions. If the answer is a quick one, we don't charge. But if it takes more than 5 minutes to review information and formulate an answer, we charge for that time at the same rate as the charge for in person session.

Telepsychiatry

With some patients who come from far away to get care at Gateway we have worked out a way of staying in touch using web conferencing technology. You should talk with your clinician about this option and you should know that we find that in person visits every three months are still necessary, telepsychiatry doesn't seem to completely substitute for in person psychotherapy and assessment. The service we use is SightSpeed, which you can sign up with for free, or pay a modest yearly fee for a slightly enhanced version. We also particularly like the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 as an add-on webcam. The quality of internet video calls with this setup is fairly good.