Telehealth

BHECN's Behavioral Telehealth technology provides an innovative means to educate and train behavioral health providers for practice throughout the state. Telehealth extends the outreach of BHECN and bridges the access gap of care delivery in Nebraska. The utilization of behavioral telehealth provides exciting educational opportunities for BEHCN to broaden its state-wide partnership, working more effectively to serve all areas of Nebraska.

Through its progressive application of behavioral telehealth technology and support, BHECN provides distance education, distance supervision, and distance service delivery for behavioral health throughout Nebraska, particularly in rural parts of the state where the need is greatest. Meeting that need is a matter of the highest priority for BHECN.

Telehealth supervision leadership is evident in the work of Dr. Michael Rice. His Primary Integrated Psychiatric Nursing (PIPN) project provides distance supervision to meet the needs of rural Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner graduate students.

The role of telehealth distance education will increase as the interprofessional programs develop within each region across the state. Health Information Technology Summits were held in 2009, 2010, and 2011 at UNMC to identify needs, barriers, existing capabilities and key players. BHECN again hosted the annual summit on November 4, 2011, to move forward the development and provisioning of telehealth-based expertise in educating and training the Nebraska workforce. Telehealth services are critical to diverse and underserved locations in Nebraska, including the western, rural parts of the state, where the shortage of behavioral health providers and support is most evident.