JEFFERSON CITY -- Wednesday afternoon St. Mary's Health Center held a ribbon cutting ceremony for new behavioral health technology, and an expanded inpatient unit.
Tele-medicine technology allows patients to visit with doctors live over a video link.
Patients can then receive follow-up treatment by hospital staff.
The new technology will provide patients with greater access to healthcare professionals...
"Nationwide, there's a shortage of psychiatrists,” St. Mary's Hospital's Psychiatric Director John Clemens said. “As a result of that, we've had a very hard time recruiting psychiatrists. This kind of alleviates some of that stress and need because we can have doctors from outside of the area provide psychiatric services here on the unit, via tele-medicine."
The hospital also increased the number of beds for behavioral health patients from 16 to 24.
St. Mary's is the only inpatient behavioral health unit in the area.
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