26: Wendy Machalicek talks Telemedicine

I sometimes joke around with folks that we Behavior Analysts are perhaps the only people who think nothing of driving one hour to do two hours of work. While that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, I find that it’s not entirely off the mark either. Obviously there are only so many hours in the day, and from both a clinical and financial perspective, these practices lead to a lot of waste. What if there was a way to leverage existing technologies to reduce travel-related barriers to providing clinical services? Well, it turns out that the answer to this question already exists, and other helping professions have been using technology to both expand services and operate more efficiently. In episode 26 of The Behavioral Observations Podcast, I chat with Dr. Wendy Machalicek, BCBA-D, who is an Associate Professor of Special Education at The University of Oregon, about using technology to provide behavior analytic services to families in rural areas. This practice goes by a few different names, but is often referred to as Telemedicine or Telehealth. Wendy discusses some of her research in this area as well as walks us through how to conceptualize the use of technology in our own work. So does that mean you can fire up Skype and start consulting with clients? Not so fast… as I learned from this conversation there are tons of technical and ethical details that have the potential to be inadvertently overlooked, including things like encryption of data, consent/assent in terms of working with adults, privacy/confidentiality of anyone who can view/hear the client-analyst exchanges, etc... Wendy also the behavior-analytic, “scene,” in Oregon and provided some helpful advice for newbies to the field (though I found her thoughts helpful for older practitioners like myself too!). We covered a lot in this episode, so here are some links of the things that were mentioned: • VSee HIPAA compliant video conferencing software • Bluetooth headsets • External web cameras • Swivl remote camera gear • The American Telemedicine Association • The APA Guidelines for practice re: Telehealth Speaking of making life more convenient, if you’re on the road a lot but need Continuing Education, check out the CE page. That’s right, you can now earn BACB Type 2 CE’s by listening to selected podcasts, and answering a few questions. Right now CE credits are available for topics such as Functional Assessment and Function-Based Interventions, The Ethics of Self-Care, and Behavioral Economics. Again, visit the CE page for more details.