(Watch for this story on Monday the 13th of January (on WZZM TV 13). Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services is undergoing a significant upgrade of its telehealth communications services.
The ongoing effort was further bolstered by a financial boost when awarded $398,825 in the Federal Communications Commission’s COVID-19 second round. Telehealth Program funding.
The psychiatric hospital and the behavioral health care provider provide a range of programs, services, and health care facilities that offer inpatient and outpatient care.
The company will use the funds to purchase additional telehealth equipment, such as tablets and software, to enhance the equipment it’s using to facilitate Teletherapy and other services for behavioral health.
Jean Holthaus, telehealth clinic manager Jean Holthaus, telehealth clinic manager, stated that Pine Rest wants to ensure all employees have the same equipment to ensure that the clinician can view the entire group and those who join the group can consider the whole group.
Pine Rest began offering telehealth services three years before the outbreak. The company set up an online clinic with up to six certified clinicians to provide virtual services.
“We could see a growing trend in the nation, actually, as a whole, that people were wanting that as an option for how they receive their services,” Holthaus stated. “We felt like it was important to meet people where they wanted to receive help instead of requiring them to receive help on our terms.”
The pandemic started, and Pine Rest began to offer many of its services online. These include the hospital-based services provided to patients suffering from behavioral health issues that are not adequately managed in a traditional outpatient facility but aren’t sufficiently severe to require 24-hour monitoring to ensure security.
Holthaus stated that the program typically required clients to remain on campus for at least six hours a day before going home and staying for the night. Amid the pandemic, the program changed to virtual.
“When the stay-at-home order came through in March (2020), Pine Rest already had the telehealth infrastructure in place with nearly 150 clinicians trained on the technology,” she explained. “Our staff really rose to the occasion and within three days , an additional 150 clinicians were educated. With the capability to conduct online visits, the professionals were able help more patients. Before March 2020 Pine Rest clinicians were conducting about 100 telehealth appointments every week. In May, they had completed almost 6,000 appointments a week.”
In 2019, Pine Rest had 3,076 telehealth visits in all the clinics it has outpatients. In 2020 and 2024, Pine Rest had 241,093, and the number of telehealth visits was 290,431 across all the outpatient clinics.
From January through mid-March of this year, telehealth visits were 53,242.
Pine Rest’s inpatient programs, hospital in-person, and residential programs continued to run through the outbreak.
Holthaus claimed that she believes customers will still demand health services via telehealth even after the pandemic has ended.
“There is absolutely no evidence it is going away,” she stated of virtual visits. “When we conduct surveys with our clients, we find that the majority of them prefer to get their services through Teletherapy. Naturally, there will be those who prefer to visit in to see us in person. More than 75% of our visits are online, and there’s absolutely no proof that this will change. Demand for it appears to be increasing and it does not appear to be related to COVID at all. The people have found that they are able to accomplish this. They’ve found it more convenient , and their choice is to do this option if it’s possible for them.”
