The Need to Implement and Evaluate Telehealth Competency Frameworks to Ensure Quality Care across Behavioral Health Professions

Technology is rapidly becoming a key player in care delivery, lifelong learning, and education/training. The American Psychiatric Association Practice-Based Learning and Improvement Core Competencies include the use information technology and lifelong learning. Current competencybased education (CBE) focuses on skills rather than on what is taught. Competency may be defined as a measurable human capability required for effective performance. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) suggested three key elements for patient-centered care: skills-focused education, interdisciplinary team-based care, and a technology/informaticsoriented administrative approach.

A key premise of telepsychiatric competencies published in 2015 is that faculty clinicians and educators have to first improve their care via clinical and technological competence, in order to then oversee trainees’ use of technologies in clinical care. Fundamental steps to this work are the alignment of clinical outcomes with teaching/supervisory methods, evaluation, and feedback. Professional association standards and guidelines typically do not focus on competencies, are complex, and are frequently incomplete (e.g., diverse populations and settings), and comparisons across professions are rare.

Telebehavioral health (TBH) is a broad term inclusive across behavioral health professions and technically includes both mental health and substance use care; in this paper, it will also include TP. Each BH discipline and field has its own nomenclature for telehealth (e.g., telepsychiatry, telepsychology, distance counseling) [9], though competencies related to technological standards were suggested years ago. A TBH competency set arrived in and a specific one for use of social media arrived in 2018. Care delivered by TBH may require additional skills—or adjusted behaviors—compared to in-person care.

The current paper will:

1. Review TBH evidence relevant to competencies, guidelines, and standards and compare similarities and differences across professions related to integrating technology in practice

2. Highlight TBH competency sets to date

3. Discuss implications of implementing TBH competencies across professions.

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