Understanding the Business Case for Telemental Health in Rural Communities

Telemental health has been promoted to address long-standing access barriers to rural mental health care, including low supply and long travel distances. Examples of rural telemental health programs are common; there is a less clear picture of how widely implemented these programs are, their organiz...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The journal of behavioral health services & research 2016-07, Vol.43 (3), p.366-379
Main Authors: Lambert, David, Gale, John, Hartley, David, Croll, Zachariah, Hansen, Anush
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business
Community and Environmental Psychology
Delivery systems
Financing
Funding
Health care
Health care delivery
Health care policy
Health Informatics
Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Health Psychology
Health services
Humans
Infrastructure
Labor force
Landscape
Medicaid
Medical research
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Mental disorders
Mental Disorders - psychology
Mental Disorders - therapy
Mental health
Mental health care
Mental health services
Mental Health Services - organization & administration
Occupational health
On-line programming
Psychiatry
Public Health
Reimbursement
Remote Consultation - organization & administration
Research centers
Rural areas
Rural communities
Rural health care
Rural Health Services - organization & administration
Rural Population
Service provision
Social services delivery
Staffing
Studies
Telemedicine
Workforce
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Telemental health has been promoted to address long-standing access barriers to rural mental health care, including low supply and long travel distances. Examples of rural telemental health programs are common; there is a less clear picture of how widely implemented these programs are, their organization, staffing, and services. There is also a need to understand the business case for these programs and assess whether and how they might realize their promise. To address these gaps, a national study was conducted of rural telemental health programs including an online survey of 53 programs and follow-up interviews with 23 programs. This article describes the current landscape and characteristics of these programs and then examines their business case. Can rural telemental health programs be sustained within current delivery systems and reimbursement structures? This question is explored in four areas: need and demand, infrastructure and workforce, funding and reimbursement, and organizational fit and alignment.
ISSN:1094-3412
1556-3308
DOI:10.1007/s11414-015-9490-7