Integrating Technology in Psychotherapy

Integrating technology and mental health can empower practitioners to deliver optimal services to clients and sustain a thriving practice. There are several ways in which you can effectively leverage standardized mental health assessment tools to enhance the client experience and your efficacy as a mental health or substance abuse professional. Let’s take a look.

Streamlining Operations

Time-consuming tasks such as scheduling, reporting, and storing client records can be made easier and faster with technology and cloud solutions. When you spend less time on the administrative side of your practice, you can focus on client interactions, professional development, supervision, and other quality improvement initiatives.

Video Conferencing with Clients

This is an exciting development in the mental health and substance abuse fields. Video conferencing or teleheath has proven to be an effective modality for addressing behavioral health concerns, particularly among underserved populations. This technology removes common barriers to treatment, including distance, difficulty making appointments, and even social anxiety.

The results of 21 studies, including six gold-standard randomized trials, show that significant improvements in anxiety and other mental health concerns are possible with video conferencing.

Lead researcher Dr. M. Blake Berryhill of the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa) says, “Telemedicine is a burgeoning area… I hope this study will move the research forward and hope it will provide more opportunities for individuals to receive mental health services, especially in rural areas and areas of mental health disparities.”

Standardized Mental Health Assessment Tools

Solutions like Better Outcomes Now (BON), the true web application of the Partners for Change Outcome Management System (PCOMS), combine technology, science, and clinical expertise, empowering practitioners to take an evidence-based approach across clients and realize improved outcomes and efficiency. BON includes telehealth functionality that goes beyond simply administering the tools and allows the same experience as a face-to-face encounter.

BON is one of the most unique standardized mental health assessment tools, as it is has been empirically demonstrated to improve psychotherapy outcomes as well as efficiency in seven randomized clinical trials. It represents the perfect marriage of technology and mental health (or behavioral health) services.