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“The Department of Mental Health serves more than 100,000 citizens with mental illnesses, but getting services to those clients isn’t always easy.
The department received $600,000 to expand its telehealth program, which allows the department to offer mental health services to patients no matter where they are in the state.
“It’s a national issue, for psychiatric patients who present themselves in an emergency setting in a hospital or emergency room and that hospital doesn’t have access to a psychiatrist, ” said Mark Binkley the Deputy Director of Community Mental Health Services
Patients would wait for days to speak to a psychiatrist, but telemedicine is helping prevent those problems by allowing patients to meet with doctors even if they’re out of town.”
