Remote consultations in the era of COVID-19 pandemic: preliminary experience in a regional Australian public acute mental health care setting

Abstract

In the wake of the recent pandemic of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), with confirmed cases having crossed 750,000, health systems across the world are getting overwhelmed; making it strenuous to maintain essential health services. Several changes were implemented in our acute mental health care service using a collaborative approach to maintain a balance between preventive measures to ‘flatten the curve’ and to provide care to those who were in need. Mode of service delivery was changed predominantly to tele-medicine, amongst others. It was found to be a workable model, albeit further follow up will be required to better understand its viability and feasibility to withstand the COVID-19 cataclysm.