ABSTRACT
Older adults were disproportionately affected by the COVID pandemic, not just by COVID-related mortality but also by social isolation. We will present an interactive workshop in which audience members are invited to share their clinical experiences and conceptualize how tele-psychiatry or tele-medicine may have changed access to care and patient outcomes. We will discuss the effect of the pandemic-induced social isolation and lack of access to care on older adults. We will talk about our telepsychiatry journey at UConn Health, and invite audience experiences. We will discuss telepsychiatry policies and how they changed with the pandemic, and the impact that had on creating a telepsychiatry practice. We will share results from a provider and patient survey, comparing older adults to the general population. We will also discuss lessons learned from this project, and best practices that increase access to care for older adults. We will review existing literature on telepsychiatry in older adults. Lastly, we will take a peek at the future, at how telepsychiatry and digital health as a whole can influence the future of mental health treatment for older adults.