What is Telehealth?
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines Telehealth as health care services that use telecommunications and virtual technology to deliver health care outside of traditional health-care facilities. These technologies include videoconferencing, the internet, store-and-forward imaging, and streaming media.
The Benefits of Telehealth
Telehealth offers a range of benefits for both therapists and their clients. It can be a powerful tool that makes mental health care easier and more convenient to access and provide. Telehealth benefits include:
- Flexible schedule: With telehealth you can have secure, real-time two-way communication anytime and anywhere. You can conduct sessions during times that best fit your schedule (and your clients). You do not have to be confined to a 9-to-5 schedule if it does not fit your lifestyle.
- Convenience: Services can be provided from an office, home, or even while traveling. With telehealth you are no longer constrained by your physical location, you can easily connect as long as you have an internet connection and a camera.
- Greater access: Telehealth can make counseling services more accessible and convenient-increasing mental health treatment outcomes.
- Improved quality: Countless studies over the last decade have consistently shown that telehealth provides quality of care that is on par with traditional in-person services.
Telehealth is a rapidly expanding area both inside the mental health space and outside of it. Telehealth's growing popularity can be attributed to the fundamental benefits it brings to both providers and clients. Our list above just includes a few of these many benefits.