Behavioral Telehealth: Emerging Practice,Research, and Policy Opportunities

Behavioral telehealth, the use of electronic and communication technologies to provide and support behavioral health care when distance separates the participants, has the potential to address the nationally significant problems of access, cost, and distribution of behavioral health care and providers. Using examples of developing behavioral clinical practice, research, and policy opportunities, this article outlines the promise of this field while discussing the barriers to the development of behavioral telehealth networks, including the lack of clinical protocols, solid evaluative research, payment for telehealth/telemedicine services, uniform state licensure, and uniform privacy/confidentiality policy. It is argued that behavioral practitioners, researchers, and advocates must actively participate in this rapidly developing field, and these professionals are ideally suited to supply ongoing federal and state policy initiatives with much needed empirical clinical data and evaluative research that will help to generate sound policy.