Faculty in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences will begin providing telemedicine behavioral health consultations to incarcerated youths on July 22. The youths are held at Naselle Youth Camp, a state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration (JRA) detention facility in Naselle, Wash.
Currently, nurse practitioner Kathy Kroening makes the 3.5-hour, one-way trip to Naselle in the southwestern corner of the state, three times monthly. Using telemedicine technology, the new program will include one monthly videoconference consultation by Deborah Thurber, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science. The nurse practitioner will then visit the facility two times monthly.
Eric Trupin, professor of psychiatry and behavioral science, supervises the JRA project and is working on the telemedicine project in collaboration with Sanford Melzer, associate professor of pediatrics and vice president for regional programs at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center. Melzer has a CHART grant from the Office for the Advancement of Telehealth (OAT) to develop and provide telemedicine to rural areas in Washington state. Melzer’s group will pay for the videoconferencing equipment and the line charges for the first year.
July 19, 2002