VIDEO: What are the challenges and benefits (as a therapist) working remotely with patients via telehealth?
Hannah Carra, LCSW, (former) Chicago Site Director & Therapist at SunCloud Health, offers comments from a therapist’s perspective, on the challenges and benefits of working virtually with patients.
VIDEO: Have any unexpected benefits come from working with your groups in a virtual space?
Rachel Goodwin, LCPC, CADC, Therapist at SunCloud Health discusses the unexpected benefits that come from working in a virtual space.
Our new Telehealth Program
SunCloud Health will be providing our patients who receive outpatient, IOP and PHP services with a hybrid- virtual program via ZOOM, a HIPAA compliant secure video conferencing service. This service will be offered “at” all three of our locations. We have made this decision because we feel it’s best for patients and staff at this precarious time. Covid-19 had presented us with no good choices. Thus we make the best one possible.
Our hybrid model will include all groups done remotely via zoom and limited individual sessions, weights and vitals and utox screens done in person at one of our offices, as needed and as clinically safe and appropriate. All other individual and family sessions will be done remotely. If someone is not comfortable coming in person, they will not have to. Everything else about our program that makes SunCloud Health unique remains the same. We remain a highly integrated program that treats various symptoms/behaviors and underlying trauma at the same time under one roof.
Our staff at each location continue to come in on a rotational basis to serve those who need to come in to our office for an individual requirement, and we are following all CDC recommended guidelines for anyone and everyone who comes in to the office. Our new infection protocols for providing safe on site delivery of services will include such actions as monitoring hand washing, taking temperatures daily, 6 feet of distance and keeping our facilities extra clean.
The goal is to limit physical contact as much as possible for all patients and staff while continuing to remain socially and spiritually connected through our community and our programming. It is always the case that patients require different and unique treatment plans. Today is no different. Our commitment to our patients remains the same; despite these challenging circumstances we will continue to do whatever they need, as long as we can provide it safely and appropriately.
Some programs have gone all virtual and others, much to our surprise, continue to run in person. As with just about everything we do at SunCloud, we will provide both. For us it’s about “both/and”, not “either/or”.
We will run this option only for as long as we need to and for no longer than it is necessary. For those of us who feel and get better as we connect/reconnect with others, we know we will undoubtedly not find the same quality of human connection remotely. Social distancing (aka isolation) is what many of us in our disease do naturally….. Too much of it for our patients is simply not healthy, and we know it. In this unprecedented time, however, some connection is better than no connection just as some treatment is better than no treatment for people who need the help right now, even if it is remote. Thus, we offer this service.
If there was ever a time for flexibility, creative problem solving, taking a “both/and” approach and working together to get through this crisis, now is that time.
Together we will all get through this. Our patients are counting on us to step up for them right now more than ever. Have not one ounce of doubt that all of us at SCH are up to that challenge. The entire team at this company is more than capable of navigating through this, and our commitment to our patients and their families is this is exactly what we will do.
Video FAQ’s on Telehealth
VIDEO: Telehealth at SunCloud Health – is it working for our patients, and how?
VIDEO: Are you able to authentically and genuinely connect with patients using zoom meetings and phone calls?
VIDEO: Our hybrid model: combining on-line group therapy and individual in person therapy as needed and as appropriate, to keep patients safe in all ways that we can.
VIDEO: How has it worked with insurance companies on our patients behalf as we have all made this dramatic and sudden change?
VIDEO: A conversation about Telehealth and the resiliency of our patients.
VIDEO: How does our new Telehealth program differ from what we looked like 30 days ago?
VIDEO: How SunCloud Health is treating eating disorders under the stay at home order?
VIDEO: Thoughts on how our Telehealth is going?
VIDEO: What should prospective patients know about our new Telehealth program?
VIDEO: Is SunCloud open during the stay at home order and are we accepting new patients?
Read More: Recovery during Covid-19. The importance of staying socially and spiritually connected, just at a physical distance, from Dr. Kim.Read More: the Executive Order for stay in place for Illinois.
Contact Us directly to sign up for our Telehealth treatment plan.
