Belfast, Maine
ATA Speech Therapy Training
While on a trip to Belfast, Maine in June of 2013, Mr. David Shipps received training on Speech Therapy Telepractice at the Waldo County General Hospital. During this training he picked up a few tips, tricks and pointers that he thought he’d share with everyone:
- This training is the only American Telemedicine Association (ATA) accredited program for speech therapy language telepractice.
- Providers that don’t use telemedicine are limiting patient access to the best on-demand care possible.
- 55% of e-patients want to communicate with you by email.
- Speech telepractice can be used to reach underserved clients/patients, and reach unserved or underserved clients, reduce costs.
- Telepractice is also known as telemedicine, teletherapy and telehealth.
- Telemedicine/Telepractice is not a separate medical specialty, but often part of a larger investment by healthcare institutions in information technology or delivery of clinical care; in fee structure there is usually no distinction.
- Per Nathan Curtis et al, instructions at WCGH, “The telepractice model in this training documents outcomes for speech therapy telepractice as good or better than traditional ‘table top’ speech therapy.”
- In a three year project in Ohio, children make equal progress in telepractice compared to the traditional; students and parents were very pleased with telepractice.
The important stuff:
(1) Telepractice is not about the technology;
(2) Effective telepractice happens when relationships are built;
(3) Technology is the portal to establish those relationships.
Competencies for SLP’s:
Procedural: Set-up Skills:
- Clinician can problem solve and correct audio, video and lighting problems on local computer and at distant site.
- Clinician chooses location of telepractice equipment to reduce visual and auditory distractions on local computer and at distant site.
- Clinician can assure privacy and confidentiality through careful location of computer and can assist adult/helper to do the same to manage their computer, webcam and microphone.
Technical Skills:
- Clinician demonstrates the ability to manage telepractice account including meeting settings, password protection, recorded materials and privacy controls.
- Clinician can locate, open, load and share materials in a telepractice session.
- Clinician utilizes a variety of web-based tools within a telepractice session to enhance interactions with client (text tools, point, eraser, highlighter).
- Clinician demonstrates skills in sharing web-based tools to engage e-learner with a variety of materials (whiteboard, desktop, documents, web content, applications).
- Clinician can carefully screen which clients could benefit from telepractice services.
Regulatory Information:
- Clinician understands scope of practices and complies with all requirements of ASHA within the delivery of services.
- Clinician knows billing codes and billing practices of telepractice services.
- Clinician demonstrates adequate documentation of telepractice services, written notes and progress reports.