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The shift to communication technologies during the pandemic has had positive and negative effects on clinical social worker practice. Best practices are identified for clinical social workers to maintain emotional well-being, prevent fatigue, and avoid burnout when using technology. A scoping review from 2000 to 21 of 15 databases focused on communication technologies for mental health care within four areas: (1) behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and physical impact; (2) individual, clinic, hospital, and system/organizational levels; (3) well-being, burnout, and stress; and (4) clinician technology perceptions. Out of 4795 potential literature references, full text review of 201 papers revealed 37 were related to technology impact on engagement, therapeutic alliance, fatigue and well-being. Studies assessed behavioral (67.5%), emotional (43.2%), cognitive (57.8%), and physical (10.8%) impact at the individual (78.4%), clinic (54.1%), hospital (37.8%) and system/organizational (45.9%) levels. Participants were clinicians, social workers, psychologists, and other providers. Clinicians can build a therapeutic alliance via video, but this requires additional skill, effort, and monitoring. Use of video and electronic health records were associated with clinician physical and emotional problems due to barriers, effort, cognitive demands, and additional workflow steps. Studies also found high user ratings on data quality, accuracy, and processing, but low satisfaction with clerical tasks, effort required and interruptions. Studies have overlooked the impact of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion related to technology, fatigue and well-being, for the populations served and the clinicians providing care. Clinical social workers and health care systems must evaluate the impact of technology in order to support well-being and prevent workload burden, fatigue, and burnout. Multi-level evaluation and clinical, human factor, training/professional development and administrative best practices are suggested., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors have no financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

Background: Video and other technologies are reshaping the delivery of health care, yet barriers related to workflow and possible provider fatigue suggest that a thorough evaluation is needed for quality and process improvement., Objective: This scoping review explored the relationship among technology, fatigue, and health care to improve the conditions for providers., Methods: A 6-stage scoping review of literature (from 10 databases) published from 2000 to 2020 that focused on technology, health care, and fatigue was conducted. Technologies included synchronous video, telephone, informatics systems, asynchronous wearable sensors, and mobile health devices for health care in 4 concept areas related to provider experience: behavioral, cognitive, emotional, and physical impact; workplace at the individual, clinic, hospital, and system or organizational levels; well-being, burnout, and stress; and perceptions regarding technology. Qualitative content, discourse, and framework analyses were used to thematically analyze data for developing a spectrum of health to risk of fatigue to manifestations of burnout., Results: Of the 4221 potential literature references, 202 (4.79%) were duplicates, and our review of the titles and abstracts of 4019 (95.21%) found that 3837 (90.9%) were irrelevant. A full-text review of 182 studies revealed that 12 (6.6%) studies met all the criteria related to technology, health care, and fatigue, and these studied the behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and physical impact of workflow at the individual, hospital, and system or organizational levels. Video and electronic health record use has been associated with physical eye fatigue; neck pain; stress; tiredness; and behavioral impacts related to additional effort owing to barriers, trouble with engagement, emotional wear and tear and exhaustion, cognitive inattention, effort, expecting problems, multitasking and workload, and emotional experiences (eg, anger, irritability, stress, and concern about well-being). An additional 14 studies that evaluated behavioral, emotional, and cognitive impacts without focusing on fatigue found high user ratings on data quality, accuracy, and processing but low satisfaction with clerical tasks, the effort required in work, and interruptions costing time, resulting in more errors, stress, and frustration. Our qualitative analysis suggests a spectrum from health to risk and provides an outline of organizational approaches to human factors and technology in health care. Business, occupational health, human factors, and well-being literature have not studied technology fatigue and burnout; however, their findings help contextualize technology-based fatigue to suggest guidelines. Few studies were found to contextually evaluate differences according to health professions and practice contexts., Conclusions: Health care systems need to evaluate the impact of technology in accordance with the Quadruple Aim to support providers' well-being and prevent workload burden, fatigue, and burnout. Implementation and effectiveness approaches and a multilevel approach with objective measures for clinical, human factors, training, professional development, and administrative workflow are suggested. This requires institutional strategies and competencies to integrate health care quality, technology and well-being outcomes., (©Donald M Hilty, Christina M Armstrong, Shelby A Smout, Allison Crawford, Marlene M Maheu, Kenneth P Drude, Steven Chan, Peter M Yellowlees, Elizabeth A Krupinski. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 25.05.2022.)

Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSWs) have been integrating technology into psychotherapy practice for at least two decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically shifted the primary method of service delivery for diagnostic assessment and therapy to telebehavioral health. By developing telebehavioral health competencies, the 250,000 + LCSWs in the US can ensure and enhance the quality of care both during and after the COVID public health emergency (PHE). This article applies an evidence- and consensus-based, interprofessional telebehavioral health (TBH) competency framework to the field of social work. This framework was developed by the Coalition for Technology in Behavioral Science (CTiBS), initially published in 2017. It has seven competency domains: (1) clinical evaluation and care; (2) virtual environment and telepresence; (3) technology; (4) legal and regulatory issues; (5) evidence-based and ethical practice (comprised of Standards and Guidelines and Social Media); (6) mobile health and apps; and (7) telepractice development. The framework outlines three competency levels (novice, proficient, and authority) covering 49 specific objectives and 146 measurable competencies or practices. The TBH competencies support existing in-person clinical practices and are intended for trainees and practitioners who are implementing TBH in practice. This competency framework can also be used to integrate clinical social work professional development, research, and training. Additionally, considerations for other behavioral health professions regarding licensure, certification, and policy may apply to clinical social work. Future research is needed on implementation and evaluation of the competencies., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestLaura W. Groshong is the Director of Policy and Practice, Clinical Social Work Association. The authors declare there are no other known conflicts of interest to disclose. Marlene M. Maheu is the Founder and Executive Director of the Telebehavioral Health Institute, which offers telehealth continuing education to social workers., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021.)

During the coronavirus pandemic, many behavioral health professionals providing psychotherapeutic services, including couple/marriage and family therapists (C/MFTs), quickly changed from providing in-person services to telebehavioral health (TBH) services, with specific reliance on teleconferencing. Many therapists were thrust into telehealth with minimal or no prior telebehavioral health experience, education, or training. Although TBH services have been shown to be effective and efficient with mental health and substance abuse problems, the teaching and learning of telebehavioral competencies have generally not been included in the formal education and training received by C/MFTs. This article presents an existing interprofessional telebehavioral health competencies framework not before published in C/MFT journals. This article will also demonstrate how those competencies are applicable to the education, training, and practice of telebehavioral health by C/MFTs. Implications for educational, service, and regulatory organizations are presented., (© 2021 American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.)

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has resulted in many worldwide rapid and major changes in how behavioral health education, training, supervision, and service delivery are being done and will have significant long-term implications for the future of telebehavioral health (TBH). Mandates for social distancing during the pandemic necessitated urgently changing from in-person forms of education, training, supervision, and service delivery to uses of telecommunications, often with minimal preparation. This column on telebehavioral health education, training, supervision, and competencies presents some examples of how organizations, programs, and practitioners generally successfully adapted and responded to these sudden circumstances. How some of the major barriers to the adoption of telebehavioral services in the USA were quickly changed, and considerations for the future education, training, and service delivery of telebehavioral health are identified., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.)

In the ever-changing fields of health care, continuing professional development (CPD) and lifelong learning are essential for patient care, regulatory requirements, personal growth, and job satisfaction. However, no specific systems in approaching CPD have been delineated, and most health professionals are left to their own devices to manage it, on top of all their other professional responsibilities. This article (1) outlines the importance of CPD, (2) describes potential systematic approaches to CPD and potential ways to assess their effectiveness, and (3) reviews resources available to incorporate into a systematic approach., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Interprofessional telebehavioral health (TBH) competencies have been developed to standardize training and improve the quality of TBH care. The seven identified interprofessional TBH competency domains and three levels of expertise (novice, proficient, and authority) are briefly described. More in depth descriptions and examples of several of the competency domains are presented to illustrate what the competencies look like in practice. Some of the challenges faced in using such a competency framework are discussed.

Background: Significant information is available about government-reimbursed telehealth services such as Medicare and Medicaid across the United States. Although currently 20 states mandate reimbursement for telehealth services and some private insurers have voluntarily covered those services in other states, relatively little is known about telehealth provider experiences with reimbursement from private insurance payers., Materials and Methods: To investigate this, the American Telemedicine Association's (ATA's) Telemental Health Special Interest Group (SIG), the Policy Group, and the Business and Finance SIG, with the help of ATA staff, conducted a national private payer reimbursement online survey in 2012 using Survey Monkey™ (Palo Alto, CA) ( www.surveymonkey.com/ )., Results: Survey responses were received from respondents in 46 of the 50 states. The survey found that telehealth services are being reimbursed by private payers but that progress in reimbursement has been relatively slow compared with earlier surveys., Conclusions: Key findings from this study were that government payers as well as several major private payers are highly influential in payment policies for telehealth private payers, that private payers have administrative rules regarding telehealth reimbursement that are barriers to services and reimbursement, and that some providers would benefit from being better informed about billing and coding for telehealth services and how to advocate for telehealth services reimbursement.