Patient Safety Planning and Emergency Management

Abstract

Purpose This chapter provides practice guidelines and resources for patient risk evaluation and emergency response when providing clinical videoconferencing (CV) services to clinic-based and nonclinic-based settings. It contains information regarding provider preparation for both behavioral and medical emergencies. Additionally, this chapter provides information regarding the identification of suitable patients for CV services. Context This chapter is useful for clinicians because although behavioral and medical emergencies in mental health settings have been addressed in the literature for decades, guidelines for handling emergencies via CV are somewhat new. Providers offering or preparing to offer CV services must necessarily attend to the specifics of risk evaluation and emergency response protocols in CV settings. Tools This chapter provides an overview of available recommendations regarding emergency planning and response in CV settings, identifies specific procedures for selecting suitable patients and for conducting emergency planning prior to and during treatment for both clinic-based and nonclinic-based settings. This chapter also includes the following tools in the appendices: Pre-treatment checklists, pre-session checklists, emergency planning templates, clinical note template for documenting emergency plans, the Assessment for Suitability Home-Based Telemental Health (ASH-25)-a suicide risk assessment tool, and a list of additional resources related to chapter topics.