"Optimizing Telehealth for Addiction Care: COVID-19 and Beyond"
Lewei Allison Lin, MD
Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, U-M Addiction Center
Director of the Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program
Practicing Addiction Clinician, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System
Research Scientist, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System
Objectives
The activity is designed to help the learner
- Discuss treatment gaps and barriers/facilitators to care for people with substance use disorders (SUDs)
- Discuss current evidence on telehealth approaches to increasing and improving outcomes for patients with SUDs
- Describe impacts of COVID-19 on SUD telehealth policies and on SUD medication and psychotherapy treatment
- Discuss innovations in models of telehealth to improve treatment for people with SUDs COVID-19 and beyond.
Summary
This presentation will discuss current barriers/facilitators to evidence-based treatments for patients with substance use disorders (SUDs) and the potential role for telehealth to address these challenges. The presentation will then focus on current evidence for telehealth in SUD care and policy changes during the COVID-19 pandemic that facilitated use of telehealth. The presentation will include recent studies examining SUD care during the pandemic, with a focus on the role and impacts of telehealth. The presentation will conclude with discussing current policy debates and innovations that are needed in telehealth to continue to improve care and outcomes for people with SUDs.
This talk is sponsored by the Luton Lecture Fund, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. This educational activity received no commercial support.