The American Board of Telehealth and the American Telemedicine Association announced that they were teaming up to expand access to training and education for virtual care.
Recently the ABT announced CORE Concepts in Telehealth Certificate. They have listed seven telemedicine-focused training models.
Deanna Larson, a founding board member of the American Board of Telehealth and chief executive officer of Avera eCARE said, that they share a common goal with ATA that is to include telehealth into the everyday fabric of healthcare.
Improving access to quality education will ensure effective care for patients especially the ones in rural and underserved communities.
Members of the ATA will get discounted access to the ABT’s certificate programs. ABT will provide a behavioral telehealth certificate and a primary telehealth certificate too in the next coming weeks. The courses will be useful for Continuing Nursing Education or Continuing Medical Education credits.
Telehealth Certificate consists of the following CORE Concepts:
Technology
Reimbursement
Ethical considerations
Quality, legal and regulatory
Telepresence skills
Privileging, licensing and credentialing
From the federal policy perspective, the future of telehealth is uncertain. But patients have expressed satisfaction about using telehealth implying that providers may benefit from offering it as a service in the long run.
One major concern is about reimbursement. If telehealth isn’t financially feasible, only patient demand cannot lead to mass adoption.
Though some states have taken steps to guarantee parity with regards to this, especially for certain specialties. Lately signed Massachusetts law will implement permanent rate parity for virtual behavioral health services along with other provisions.
ATA Chief Executive Officer Ann Mond Johnson said that ABT’s Certificate Program is considered to be the gold standard for telehealth education while preparing healthcare providers to use telehealth and virtual care to deliver safe, effective, quality care to patients, whenever and wherever needed.