A Practitioner's Guide to Telemental Health: How to Conduct Legal, Ethical, and Evidence-Based Telepractice

When providing telehealth services, physical distance can create ethical and safety challenges. Such challenges are manageable when following the best practices outlined in this book, which illustrates how to conduct mental health services via videoconferencing and other technologies.

As telecommunication technologies and health apps become more ubiquitous and affordable, they expand opportunities for mental health professionals to provide quality care. However, physical distance as well as technology itself can create challenges to safe and ethical practice. Such challenges are manageable when following the best practices outlined in this book.

Providers can use videoconference and other technologies for assessment, treatment delivery, psychoeducation, supervision, and consultation. This practical guide covers each facet of telemental health care in turn, with emphasis on:

• Conducting telepractice within legal, regulatory, and ethical boundaries
• Safeguarding clients’ privacy and ensuring the security of their data
• Establishing a welcoming, safe environment and therapeutic rapport from a distance

David D. Luxton, PhD, is CEO and founder of Luxton Labs LLC, a behavioral health technologies search and development company, chief science officer at NowMattersNow.org, and affiliate associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle. He previously served as a research health scientist at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, California, and as a research psychologist and program manager at the U.S. Army's National Center for Telehealth & Technology. Dr. Luxton's research and writing is focused in the areas of military and veterans' health, suicide prevention, telehealth, clinical best practices and ethics when using technology, and the study and development of emergent technologies in health care. He has served on numerous national workgroups and committees and is a highly sought after subject matter expert and consultant. Dr. Luxton is a licensed clinical psychologist and U.S. Air Force veteran.
 
Eve-Lynn Nelson, PhD, is a professor of pediatrics and telemedicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC), where she directs the KU Center for Telemedicine and Telehealth. She also serves as the research liaison for the KU Institute for Community Engagement. Her research focuses on health services using telemedicine and videoconferencing technologies. She has served as principal investigator and collaborator on a number of grants pairing distance education and clinical telemedicine to address access gaps across the lifespan. Recent projects are the evaluation of mobile telebehavioral health approaches delivered to the home as well as a trial evaluating telebehavioral services to rural children living in poverty. In addition, Dr. Nelson spearheads KUMC's replication of the national Project Extension of Healthcare Outcomes. She is a licensed psychologist who leads a multidisciplinary telemedicine clinic providing services throughout rural and urban settings and across primary care clinics, schools, and other sites. She supervises health trainees across disciplines in learning about telemental health and adopting technologies into practice.
 
Marlene M. Maheu, PhD, is a consultant, trainer, author, and researcher. She is the executive director of the TeleMental Health Institute, Inc. For more than 20 years, Dr. Maheu's focus has been on the legal and ethical risk management issues related to the use of technologies in behavioral health. She has trained more than 15,000 licensed clinicians and overseen the development and delivery of professional training in telemental health via an eLearning platform that has served clinicians in 39 countries worldwide. She has written peer-reviewed articles, authored four telehealth textbooks, and served on professional association committees and task forces related to behavioral telehealth. Her vision and passion for the legal and ethical use of technology have led to her presidency of multiple nonprofit groups, including the American Counseling Association's Counseling and Technology Interest Network and the Coalition for Technology in Behavioral Science. In her consulting role, she has led teams for elemental health program design and strategic planning, technology choices, technology development, staff recruitment, staff training, risk management, credentialing, reimbursement, and outcome research. Through a new company, BehaviorIT, she also consults with technology startup companies developing behavioral health technologies that seek to improve outcomes by automating behavioral services for employers, health plans, primary and specialty care offices, and universities.