Organised by the EPA Section on TeleMental Health. Widespread use of video, mobile health and other technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic has given users a vision of what is possible in the future to reshape the delivery of healthcare worldwide. The pandemic has not only necessitated a shift in health technology adoption, but it has also highlighted a shift in the needs from health technology awareness, to an era where the focus is digital and cultural literacy to optimize the benefits that can be leveraged to health outcomes. Skills (i.e., competencies) and attitudes are as important knowledge to ensure patient-centered care. Published competencies focus on Patient Care (history, assessment, management, medico-legal issues, privacy, confidentiality), Communication (engagement, interpersonal skills), Systems-based Practice (quality improvement, safety), Practice-based Learning and Knowledge. Video and mobile health skills are now in demand, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. For clinicians and institutions to implement services, they need to consider the human-computer interaction, ethical and legal, models of care and quality of life issues.

The pandemic has caused major disruptions to psychiatric training programmes and therefore trainees across Europe. A particularly vulnerable group has been the senior trainees transitioning to specialist roles during this uncertain and highly challenging period. While trainees had to go through major difficulties with completing their clinical, academic and leadership requirements, trainers also struggled to find adaptive methods to ensure good quality training and clinical exposure. In this workshop we aim to bring together junior specialists with senior training leads to offer top tips to facilitate a smoother transitioning from trainee to specialist roles with or without the pandemic. The target audience will be psychiatric trainees as well as young specialists and academics. The Workshop will offer the enriching insight from Dr O’Loughlin who is leading one of the best reviewed psychiatry schools in the UK who will interactively discuss the projects they developed to maintain and improve training throughout the pandemic in a very severely affected western European country. Dr Kuzman will then share ways to manage academic activities and mentorship for psychiatric training despite the pandemic and discuss their learning outcomes with the Workshop participants. We will also hear from Dr Seker and Dr Zaja who themselves had to go through this transition during the height of the pandemic and are heavily involved with initiatives for European psychiatric training including the EFPT, EPA-ECPC, ESCAP and UEMS. Dr Seker will speak about how to maintain research involvement despite the disruption of the pandemic and interactively discuss methods to create new trainee-led training opportunities locally and on a European scale. Dr Zaja will recount his local and international experience going from the chief specialty trainee to the start-up specialist and focus on the clinical aspects of the process in a central European setting. The workshop will offer a lively, interactive experience overall and bring different perspectives from speakers with backgrounds as trainees, trainers, clinicians and academics.

Organised by the EPA Section on TeleMental Health. Telepsychiatry, an aspect of digital psychiatry, is rapidly being adopted throughout the world as a solution for disparities in access to mental health care. Its spread has been significantly accelerated a consequence of measures taken to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Whilst the evidence supports the use of telepsychiatry in clinical practice, clinicians have often started from a base with little or no specific training. The skills required for effective telepsychiatric care are distinct from our practices in the traditional clinic, face-to-face; adaptation of our usual practices are required to achieve optimal outcomes. The current situation may pose new risks, and there are controversies. The workshop aims to provide the audience with up-to-date techniques and information on the more important issues in telepsychiatric care, delivered by European experts in managing psychosis, suicide risk, substance misuse, transition psychiatry, care of the elderly, and forensic issues.