Steven Chan, MD: How New Technologies are Changing Physician Practice

Steven Chan, MD:

For the seasoned psychiatrist and the seasoned mental health professional, what we are trying to do is expose them to technologies.

What we've been hearing at these different conferences are people asking things like, well my patient has asked me about this app, or my patient has asked me about this smart watch, or this device like this one I'm wearing.

The patients are asking their doctor for recommendations or asking the clinicians for additional technological support. What we're trying to do is expose people to these new technologies, devices and apps and let them know that this is just like medication science, knowing what the different molecules are, except we're translating it over to technology so that we can equip these practitioners for this century.

For clinicians, this could potentially be something that differentiates them from other practitioners. So for instance, if I were a very busy mom with multiple things to keep track of and a job as well, I want to find a practitioner that's easily accessible I can schedule appoints with online.

So these technologies can help differentiate and make a practitioner more unique or stand out amongst the crowd.