By Jeffrey E. Barnett, Psy.D., and Ofer Zur, Ph.D.
This article is part of an online course on Telehealth.
Telehealth or e-therapy is the use of technology to provide clinical services. Telehealth activities may include: Using the telephone (of course, including cell phones) for crisis intervention or other contacts between in-person sessions; Providing clinical services entirely by telephone to an individual in a different geographical area; Using e-mail for in between in-person session contacts with clients; Using e-mail to provide online counseling services with no in-person contact; Providing assessment or treatment services to an individual in a different location utilizing interactive televideo communications technology.
Following is a list of telehealth or e-therapy online resources.
Note: The nature of the Internet is always rapidly evolving. Some of these links will change by the time you get to them.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Telehealth
Visit http://www.hrsa.gov/telehealth/ for the website of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Health Resources and Services Administration's website. This useful site provides a report on telehealth licensure requirements and trends for many health professions across the country. By clicking on Publications you then have access to their Telemedicine Licensure Report, the document "Telemental Health: Delivering Mental Health Care at a Distance," and a number of other useful documents and links.
DiBlassio, J., Simonin, D., DeCarlo, A., Moore, L., Jean, J., Vassalotte, L., Franks, K., & Chambliss, C. (1999). Assessing the quality of psychological healthcare sites available on the Internet. Perspectives, 4(4). http://mentalhelp.net/perspectives/articles/art12982
