Ketamine Infusions Administered Solely by Psychiatric Staff

Even though intravenous ketamine is not an FDA-approved depression treatment, multiple studies have shown a robust antidepressant effect which has led to an increase in clinical practices implementing its use to manage treatment-resistant depression. Traditionally, this therapy has been provided in both outpatient and inpatient settings, with anesthesia specialists and psychiatrists working collaboratively on most cases. Several studies have been conducted in various psychiatric settings to study the effects of ketamine in depression, mostly in a collaborative manner. Thorough search of the literature found no published reports on the use of ketamine infusions merely for clinical purposes in a psychiatric hospital setting, implemented solely by a psychiatric-based team without collaboration from anesthesia specialists. In an effort to explore the utilization of ketamine infusions, the Missouri University Psychiatric Center (MUPC), an acute mental inpatient facility, formed a ketamine infusion team composed solely of mental health clinicians and staff to investigate the use of ketamine infusions by a psychiatric team. To our knowledge, this is the first-time ketamine infusions have been administered by a clinically based psychiatric team in a psychiatric hospital. The MUPC ketamine team has proved that ketamine infusions may provide a unique intervention safely and efficaciously without the need for collaboration with other medical specialties since initiating this pilot program.