The Bumpy History of Telepsychiatry (Before The Internet)

Telepsychiatry did NOT start during the pandemic. Heck, it didn’t even start with the internet. Actually, remote medicine is more than a hundred years old, and modern telepsychiatry dates back to the 1960s. The reason people have kept pushing telemedicine forward is the same reason it still matters today: geography can stand between a patient and the care they need. Someone in a rural community may live hours from the right specialist. A hospital may need expertise that simply is not available nearby. Remote care became a way to close that distance instead of asking patients to go without. In this episode of The Telepsychiatry Advantage, Dr. Edward Kaftarian traces back the history of telemedicine: doctors using telegraphs and telephones to reach patients from a distance, the first psychiatric video programs in Nebraska, early hospital experiments, and the decades of technological breakthroughs that eventually made virtual care mainstream. Dr. Kaftarian walks through how we got here, why telepsychiatry took so long to catch on, and why the original promise of remote care still matters today. For more information about Orbit Health, visit us at: https://www.orbithealth.com/ DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in the podcast are  Dr. Kaftarian's personal opinions regarding best practices and are not intended to establish or represent the standard of care. It remains the responsibility of each listener to ensure compliance with all applicable standards of care, laws, regulations, and professional requirements.