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What You Should Know
- The Launch: Talkiatry, the nation’s largest private employer of psychiatrists, has launched Talkiatry Connect, a new referral tool that embeds directly inside a provider’s existing cloud-based EMR.
- The Solution: Talkiatry Connect acts as a browser-based overlay (running on Chromium browsers) that integrates with over 30 cloud-based EMRs, including Athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, and Practice Fusion. A small icon alerts the provider if a patient might need psychiatric care, and a one-click panel auto-populates the referral directly from the chart.
Bypassing the IT Bottleneck
One of the most dangerous gaps in the American healthcare system exists in the three seconds it takes a primary care doctor to switch tabs on their computer monitor. When a physician realizes a patient is struggling with severe depression or anxiety, they know a psychiatric referral is necessary. But the actual mechanics of that referral are often a nightmare. The doctor has to minimize the Electronic Medical Record (EMR), open a separate web portal, log in, re-type the patient’s demographic information, and send the referral into a black hole. Often, the PCP never finds out if the patient actually received care. Because of this workflow friction—often called the “portal hop”—thousands of vulnerable patients quietly fall out of view.
With patient consent, Talkiatry Connect feeds clinical summaries and progress updates back to the referring provider EMR without them ever leaving their workflow.Talkiatry Connect supports over 30 cloud-based EMRs (like Athenahealth and eClinicalWorks) natively. A small icon lives on the screen; if the provider clicks it, a panel slides out, auto-populates the referral using data already on the screen, and routes the patient directly to Talkiatry’s massive network of over 800 in-network psychiatrists. It takes days to deploy, requires practically zero technical lift from the hospital’s IT department, and is offered at no cost to the partner.
“It’s been too hard for providers to do something that should be simple: refer a patient to a psychiatrist,” said Robert Krayn, CEO and co-founder of Talkiatry. “Talkiatry Connect changes that by keeping the entire referral inside the EMR.”
Early Adoption
Talkiatry Connect is already live at New York Cancer & Blood Specialists, where oncologists are using it to seamlessly coordinate psychiatric support for patients undergoing complex cancer treatments.
