April 14, 2020
On April 11, Ron DeVries, PhD, from the Pine Rest Kalamazoo Clinic was interviewed on WWMT’s State of Mind. The topic was “Mental Healthcare Providers Turn To Teletherapy During COVID-19 Pandemic”.
With such a need and physical offices closed to the public, psychologists and psychiatrists are turning to telehealth to make sure people’s mental health doesn’t get left behind. Because of the increased ability to do virtual visits, mental health providers will be able to reach out and help people they couldn’t reach before.
“Lots of organizations are working very hard to make the transition so that people’s mental health is still being cared for,” said Dr. Ron DeVries, a psychologist for Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services. “A month or so ago we did about 400 telehealth visits, and last week we did over 5,000, so we really, really stepped up and people were trained and we are ready to go.”
