The recognition was given for P枚ssel鈥檚 dedication to the field of psychology and demonstrating extraordinary care toward clients and students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

鈥淭he award means a lot to me,鈥� P枚ssel said. 鈥淚t is not something I could have accomplished alone, and my team at the Cardinal Success Program has gotten us here.鈥�

As the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, P枚ssel and the Cardinal Success Program, including post-doctoral associate Brooke Rappaport, moved the operation entirely to telehealth services within just one month.

This shift, and the massive effort on behalf of the program to provide counseling services through a telehealth format, allowed counseling services to continue when the community needed them most.

鈥淧atrick managed teaching, administrative tasks, mentorship and the other rigors of academics, and found a way to continue care for a client population that needed stability,鈥� said KPA President Steve Katsikas. 鈥淒uring these wildly unpredictable months, the Cardinal Success Program has found a way to get care to individuals who face multiple barriers to health.鈥�

P枚ssel, who has been with the University of Louisville for 14 years, accepted the award from the Cardinal Success Program鈥檚 location in the Nia Center 鈥� a multi-service center located in West Louisville.

鈥淚 would like to thank KPA, which has been my professional home since the day I came to Kentucky almost 15 years ago,鈥� P枚ssel said. 鈥淚 would also like to thank all of the masters and doctoral level psychologists in Kentucky who do their jobs day in and day out despite difficult conditions. Thank you for getting up every day and doing this work with and for our clients.鈥�

Prior to joining the ranks at UofL in 2007, P枚ssel served as a visiting assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, an assistant professor at the University of T眉bingen in Germany, and an associate lecturer at Frankfurt am Main, also in Germany.

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In UofL’s College of 成人直播 and Human Development, many faculty members have also contended with another pandemic dilemma 鈥� ensuring that students are involved in practicum experiences and maintaining the quality of those experiences during such uncertain times.

As the director of the Cardinal Success Program, and professor in the Department of Counseling and Human Development, Patrick P枚ssel coordinates and facilitates the placement of master’s students in counseling psychology settings within the West Louisville community. The program housed within two brick-and-mortar locations (the Academy at Shawnee and the Nia Center), have developed a consortium model in the years since its creation. With additional support from postdoctoral associate Brooke Rappaport, the program partners with several community organizations, including the Norton Children鈥檚 Autism Center and the University of Louisville Trager Institute.

Regardless of the location, students enrolled in counseling psychology, clinical mental health counseling, art therapy, or mental health nursing programs are given the opportunity to gain face-to-face experience with clients in a therapeutic setting. All CSP clients are uninsured or under-insured, and all of the services are offered at no cost to clients.

As the COVID-19 pandemic hit and in-person counseling services were rendered impossible, P枚ssel was faced with the task of moving the CSP operation and practicum experiences to a telehealth format. While the program was shuttered for March and April 2020 while the logistical details were finalized, the practicum students were beginning to reach out to their clients to offer telehealth services in early May.

鈥淚 know that it was a huge relief, both to me and to my clients, when we were able to start making those phone calls and letting folks know that we could begin sessions again,鈥� said counseling psychology graduate Emily Edwards. 鈥淭here was a pretty huge learning curve with the switch to telehealth, but knowing that I would get to start seeing my clients again made it all worth it.鈥�

Both in-person and telehealth services have their drawbacks and advantages, P枚ssel said.

鈥淚 think that this has made it easier for some clients to receive our services. Now, you don鈥檛 have to travel to us. If you need childcare services, you only need those services for an hour as opposed to an entire afternoon,” he said. “We once had a client receiving our services who walked two hours each way to get to and from his sessions. That is a five-hour trip once per week. Now, all he needs to do is login to attend his sessions.鈥�

However, P枚ssel adds there are certain risks that go along with students conducting sessions from their homes.

鈥淚t is really tricky to have a student providing services from home, and just trusting that that student will call you if anything goes wrong. When we offer in-person services, our students know that I am only two rooms away and all it takes is coming over to ask for help,鈥� he said.

Current counseling psychology student Allie Christian noted her positive experience in offering telehealth services.

鈥淚 believe that telehealth allows for clients to be a little bit more flexible with their schedules since they do not have to worry about the time it takes to get to either of [our] sites,” she said. “Being able to have therapy sessions at home also allows clients to be in a more comfortable and familiar environment.鈥�

However, Christian also noted challenges with her clients, including those who may struggle with the technology needed to facilitate telehealth and disparities in WiFi access.聽

P枚ssel says that the program has done its best to respond to such challenges in order to offer equitable services to all. The Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence provided the program with a generous donation so it could purchase 15 Chromebooks for youth clients, for example.聽

The shift to telehealth has also changed the scope of the work CSP is able to do throughout the state of Kentucky.

鈥淲hile our focus is still in West Louisville, we are now only limited by the state borders, not travel time,鈥� P枚ssel said.

For example, the program is now receiving referrals from Bullitt County through Norton Children鈥檚 Hospital.聽聽

While the future remains uncertain, P枚ssel looks forward to reopening the doors to CSP in-person.

鈥淎s soon as possible, we will provide both in-person and remote services again. The idea is not that this is simply an emergency situation that we will drop when we are able to. Our goal is always to meet people where they are,鈥� he said.聽

Story written by Natalie Hewlett, coordinator for development and communications in the College of 成人直播 and Human Development.

鈥淭here is both an urgent and widespread need to not only treat patients but deliver expertise and training remotely and safely to both professionals and medical learners,鈥� said R. Brent Wright, MD, associate dean for rural health innovation聽at the UofL School of Medicine, who has been working with various companies to explore a smart glasses solution for telemedicine since 2014.

Long-term care facilities and emergency departments represent two of the areas with greatest need for the glasses for direct physician care during the pandemic. The UofL Trager Institute, emergency medicine and psychiatry are part of a feasibility study to test the Vuzix M400 smart glasses.

鈥淚t is imperative that we find solutions for health care to continue for the vulnerable nursing home population in Kentucky,鈥� said Anna Faul, PhD, executive director and professor, UofL Trager Institute. 鈥淭he use of smart glasses to provide real-time, expert geriatric care to residents of long-term care facilities is a huge step in increasing access to care, particularly during COVID-19. Each nursing home in our study will receive smart glasses that will allow for remote video consults with specialized medical providers and behavioral health experts without the need for the providers to enter the facilities and expose themselves and other patients to COVID-19.鈥�

The concept is fairly straightforward. An advanced practice nurse practitioner or other health care professional working at a LTC facility will put on the web-connected glasses and dial-in with an attending physician through the Zoom conference platform. A camera and microphone are attached to the glasses, and the technology has the potential to display and obtain information for the physician to access remotely. The physician can see and interact directly with the LTC resident, providing immediate consultation and evaluation.

The glasses allow for ease of mobility and hands-free interaction for the on-site provider, an advantage over current standard telehealth delivery which requires computers and monitors to be transported from bed-to-bed on large carts. Additionally, data can be input into medical records hands-free, and can be controlled by voice-commands.

Smart glasses will support health care workers at five LTC facilities and one emergency department in Kentucky. UofL researchers will conduct a brief feasibility study related to the use of these six pairs of smart glasses. If the data is promising, the study will be extended. Once the pandemic has subsided, researchers hope to investigate the utility of usage for medical education.

鈥淭his technology holds great promise. UofL faculty are exploring how to transform health care and this is part of an innovative solution as we provide care and educate the next generation of physicians,鈥� said Toni Ganzel, MD, dean of the UofL School of Medicine, and vice president for academic medical affairs.

鈥淭he pandemic has served as the catalyst for changing delivery of care. When you have to do things so rapidly and emergently, there is a call to be creative and innovative. Telemedicine allows us to share expertise while keeping a safe distance, and the smart glasses are very high-fidelity.

鈥淭he timing had to be right for this technology to become more accepted,” Wright said. “It will be big part of health care moving forward, even after this swell with the COVID-19 pandemic, and it will be exciting to see some of our current medical residents incorporate telemedicine into their future practices.”

鈥淭ravel distance, along with often other serious health conditions, make it difficult for patients to get to a weekly appointment,鈥� said Jodi Wojcik-Marshall, MSN, APRN, ANP-BC, manager of the UofL Hospital Department of Advanced Practice Nursing and nurse practitioner in the Burn Center. 鈥淲e saw a need to reduce the high number of missed appointments by reducing access barriers.鈥�

In response to the need, a telehealth burn wound care pilot initiative was developed in collaboration with J鈥橝ime Jennings, PhD, assistant professor and co-director, at the .

Jennings led the effort to translate the outpatient burn center鈥檚 in-person standards and protocol into a telehealth format.

The program uses the technology for providers Wojcik-Marshall and Michelle Broers, PT, DPT, CWS, FACCWS, to have a dialogue with patients during telehealth visits. Each patient downloads the free BlueJeans app to their smartphone or device and uses a unique connection number to sign in for each appointment.

鈥淲e found both in the literature and in early observations of this pilot benefits not only for patients but also for home health providers and family members who help the patients with their treatment,鈥� Jennings said.

Jennings and her team are in process of evaluating patient and provider satisfaction surveys. Next steps include determining adjustments to the program, and how the burn center may expand the initiative to benefit more patients.

The department and聽聽this month received an honorable mention from the聽聽Breaking Barriers through Telehealth awards for bridging gaps to mental health care in rural Kentucky and providing an innovative way to train resident physicians.

The collaboration began in 2015, transplanting the well-established model for teaching residents in a clinical setting to a video teleconferencing platform that connects聽patients at a rural mental health care facility to UofL psychiatrists. Through the partnership, UofL provides telepsychiatry primarily in Casey and Taylor counties.

鈥淭elepsychiatry often means the difference between care and no care for some rural patients,鈥� said Robert Caudill, MD,聽, residency training director and associate professor of the聽. 鈥淭hese patients can go long periods of time between appointments because they have to travel far from home for care or available slots are filled. Rural health facilities have a difficult time recruiting and maintaining medical staff.鈥�

UofL has helped maintain Adanta鈥檚 staffing level without having to rely on temporary doctors who are typically expensive to employ. In turn, Adanta increased the length of appointments to allow residents time to learn under faculty supervision.

鈥淲e provide university-based physicians who are working with the clinics consistently and Adanta didn鈥檛 have to hire us at 40 hours a week,鈥� Caudill said. 鈥淚 could be there for four hours an afternoon in an isolated clinic, and with the click of a mouse, treat patients in a different clinic without having to drive somewhere. The logistics are persuasive.鈥�

Telepsychiatry has other benefits to the patient. Stigma surrounding mental health treatment is reduced because the process of going to appointments is more private. It鈥檚 also less intimidating to patients who have experienced trauma to meet with a physician through a video monitor, Caudill said.

As mental health services transition from relying on traditional office visits, UofL psychiatry residency graduates are prepared to integrate technology into their clinical practice.

Timothy Bickel, telehealth director at the UofL School of Medicine, said training resident physicians in telemedicine should expand beyond psychiatry.

鈥淢edical students and residents get attention from prospective employers for being involved in telehealth,鈥� Bickel said. 鈥淪tudents should at least have the opportunity to be exposed to telehealth.鈥�

Jill Preminger, PhD, director of the Program in Audiology at UofL, is co-chair of the , July 27-28 on UofL鈥檚 Health Sciences Center campus. It will be the first such meeting outside Europe.

The first two meetings were organized by Swedish researchers, Gerhard Andersson, PhD, and Thomas Lunner, PhD, in 2014 at Link枚ping University in Sweden and in 2015 in Denmark. Preminger presented talks at both conferences and was asked to co-chair the first one to be held in the U.S. Ariane Laplante-L茅vesque, PhD, of Eriksholm Research Centre in Denmark and Link枚ping University in Sweden, also is an event co-chair.

鈥淚 attended the first meeting because I was beginning to conduct research in which I hoped to develop an internet-based rehabilitation program for adults with hearing loss,鈥� Preminger said. 鈥淎t the second meeting, Dr. Lunner asked if I would be interested in hosting the next meeting. They wanted to bring the meeting to the United States in order to open it up to a new audience.鈥�

Research audiologists, engineers, clinical audiologists and student researchers are expected at this year鈥檚 event from the United States, Canada, Europe, South America, Africa and Asia. Consistent with the event鈥檚 focus, five presentations and more than half of the 84 attendees will participate from remote locations via internet connections.

Conference sessions will address four themes: Barriers and facilitators to telepractice, ethical issues related to internet-based research and services, big data, and methods for research and service delivery.

Elizabeth Buchanan, PhD, director of the Center for Applied Ethics at the University of Wisconsin – Stout, will give a keynote address on 鈥淓thical Issues related to internet-based research and service delivery.鈥澛營nternet-based programs to collect data and to provide clinical service can reach many more individuals, but new programs must consider the ethical issues that may arise. Buchanan will discuss whether it truly is possible to get informed consent for internet-based research or clinical service, and how to protect the privacy of participants and patients in online discussions.

Harvey Dillon, PhD, director of the National Acoustics Laboratory in Australia, will deliver a keynote via remote broadcast on the 鈥淧otential of Large Scale Data in Hearing Rehabilitation.鈥澛燱ith the internet it now is possible to collect 鈥淏ig Data,鈥� from participants across a country or around the world.聽Dillon will address concerns about ethical and legal issues related to collecting data across countries as well as exciting possibilities for very large datasets that will allow for better decisions about the effectiveness of treatments across diverse populations.

The conference is sponsored by the Oticon Foundation and through a NIH (NIDCD) Conference Grant (1R13DC016547-01). Oticon Inc., creates hearing aids, cochlear implants, other implantable hearing devices and diagnostic equipment related to audiology.

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