Audience
Let’s say you’re a doctor. A doctor who’s anxious about treating a kid who might also be anxious. Or is your patient depressed? Is it something else entirely?
A primary care residency taught you many things. But not everything.
Now imagine you could pick up the phone, and talk to another doctor — one who knows mental health.
That’s why Bradley Hospital, Rhode Island’s psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents, created the Pediatric Psychiatry Resource Network, or PediPRN, in 2016. The service connects children’s primary care physicians (PCPs) to pediatric psychiatrists, streamlining the process for prescribing common psychiatric drugs that may still be unfamiliar to primary care docs.
Alison Manning, a psychiatrist who works at Hasbro Children’s and Bradley Hospitals, might pick up the phone when a doctor calls.
“Certainly, we don’t want PCPs to feel uncomfortable and prescribe medications that they’re not familiar with,” Manning said. “Our main role is to support them in prescribing things that they feel comfortable with.”
PediPRN served 71 medical practices and 425 primary care pediatricians in 2022, according to figures from Lifespan, the health network to which Bradley Hospital belongs. A total of 65 doctors made 209 phone calls to the consultation hotline. Anxiety was the most common diagnosis that year, comprising 51% of cases. ADHD placed second at 34%. Depression and autism spectrum disorders were 20% and 12% of diagnoses, respectively.