HJAR Jul/Aug 2020

G. Richard Smith, MD is chairman of the Department of Psychiatry in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), and director of UAMS’ Psychiatric Research Institute. Smith oversaw the design and construction of the Psychiatric Research Institute, which opened in 2008. He served as the original chairman from 2001 to 2013, before he was named dean of the UAMS College of Medicine, and executive vice chancellor in 2013, a position he held for two years before stepping down to become a professor of psychiatry, medicine and public health. He came back as the chairman of the UAMS Department of Psychiatry in 2018. A native of Jonesboro, Smith received a bachelor’s degree in chemical biology from Rhodes College in Memphis. He graduated from the UAMS College of Medicine in 1977. He completed a residency in psychiatry at UAMS, and continued his training with a fellowship in psychiatry and internal medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York, before joining the UAMS faculty in 1981. Editor You created a 24-7 telemental health platform. Can you tell us about the genesis of this, and a little about it? G. Richard Smith, MD Well, our team cre- ated it, and I just happened to be the team leader, so there are lots of people involved in it. UAMS has one of its major goals for the next decade to be a strong statewide digital health player. Under the banner of UAMS HealthNow, we took a look at both the strategic plan, and also the need with the COVID-19 crisis. With the COVID-19 crisis came some relaxation on the rules for telehealth, which are well known here in the state. We were able, in a couple of weeks—two weeks to be exact—to pivot from being almost exclusively in person, to being almost exclusively via telemedicine provi- sion of care. We were able to use some of UAMS’s existing resources, which included the call center, and we built a part of the call center to be specifically focused on men- tal health. Most of the time we can give someone an appointment the next day, and provide an assessment by a mental health professional. We have a background here in doing substantial research for the last 15 or 20 years in terms of telemental health, both in our VAhere, which our faculty staffs, and through our NIH research. However, the rules have been such in the state that we never could practice what we did the research about. With the relaxation of the rules, we were able to move quickly to be able to do that. Editor Have you noticed an increase in the diagnosis of certain behaviors than before the COVID-19 pandemic? Dr. Smith I think there is a lot more anxi- ety, in general. There is probably signifi- cantly more trauma related types of things, but I think what we’re going to see is more problems with just about everything. For instance, if you take substance abuse, not only are people, in our experience, using more substances, and a broader array of them, but many times their providers are DIALOGUE 10 JUL / AUG 2020 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS