Telemental Health
Telehealth has also been referred to as Telemedicine, TeleMental Health or E-Health. Telehealth refers to the general term of delivery of medicine via digital means.
When it comes to psychology, counseling and mental health services, it has been called TeleMental Health, TelePsychology, E-Counseling, E-Psychotherapy, TelePsychiatry, Internet-based psychotherapy, and other similar names, including TeleAnalysis for conducting psychoanalytic psychotherapy via telehealth technologies.
TeleMental Health Activities May Include
using the telephone, text, e-mail, or interactive tele-video-conferencing technologies for:
- Crisis intervention or other contacts between in-person sessions.
- Conducting sessions with patients who are not able to attend in-person sessions for a period of time.
- Conducting psychotherapy with an individual in a different geographical area with or without in-person face-to-face contact.
- Providing assessment, prevention or treatment of mental disorders or related services to an individual in a different location.
- Conducting psychotherapy via phone or Internet synchronistically (i.e., at the same time, such as on the phone or via phone or via video-conferencing) or a-synchronistically (i.e., sequential, via text, e-mail or chat).
Professional organizations, insurance companies, and state and federal regulatory agencies all offer similar services but have somewhat different definitions. In other words, no universal definition exists for telehealth services, also known as telemedicine.
More succinctly, telehealth is defined as the use of technology to provide clinical services.