Telehealth Tips from Turning Point

In the shadow of COVID-19, telehealth has been pushed to the forefront of service delivery. Everyone is working rapidly to establish quality telehealth systems to replace face-to-face therapeutic encounters with clients.

But for some services, like Turning Point’s Directline, which began operations over 30 years ago, and Counselling Online, the 24 hour web- based counselling service for people concerned about their AOD use, the telehealth experience is ‘business as usual’. These services have an established history of connecting clients to health care providers. Both clinicians and researchers at Turning Point have demonstrated the utility of new technologies in the AOD service sector. It’s likely that the increased uptake of telehealth during COVID-19 will result in long-term changes to service delivery, including greater investment in telehealth so that we can continue to provide more innovative models of care for our clients in future.