The Dr. Juan N. Navarro Children's Psychiatric Hospital, located in the Tlalpan mayor's office in Mexico City, implemented a reorganization in its work and service provision scheme during the pandemic, which has led to the creation of a telemedicine program and tele-education.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Hospital has reorganized the work schedule and allowed remote work in areas where it was possible. And outpatient interventions became the top priority, ahead of hospitalizations.
In March 2020, the staff of the Dr. Juan N. Navarro Children's Psychiatric Hospital, in response to the pandemic, had to adopt adaptation mechanisms to maintain efficient functionality. However, it was necessary to create new strategies and plans based on telemedicine. In this way, health tools such as information technology and telecommunications were integrated to achieve a new organization, providing quality psychiatric care, without exposing patients to the virus.
It was until February 2021, that a follow-up and telephone monitoring strategy was implemented for patients with serious pathologies, calls are made daily, every third day or weekly. They currently monitor 135 patients.
In March, a new telemedicine strategy was implemented, however, based on tele-education. This is how the tele-education plan was born from the teleconsultation, which consisted of communication through video calls between the specialist doctor and the resident doctor who was in the hospital with the patients. Through this scheme, more than 680 remote consultations were carried out.
Training for professionals
Likewise, the hospital participated in the national mental health and addictions tele-mentorship program in conjunction with other institutions such as the Fray Bernardino Álvarez Psychiatric Hospital, the “Juan Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz” National Institute of Psychiatry or the Youth Integration Centers ( ICJ).
This course consisted of three 6-hour modules, through which they trained 41 professionals in psychology, medicine, psychopedagogy and social work from different states of the republic.
During the course, the participants received training on emergency teleconsultations, prehospital teleconsultations, and foreign teleconsultations.
