Banbury Forum Consensus Statement on the Path Forward for Digital Mental Health Treatment.

Abstract

A major obstacle to mental health treatment for many Americans is accessibility: the United States faces a shortage of mental health providers, resulting in federally designated shortage areas. Although digital mental health treatments (DMHTs) are effective interventions for common mental disorders, they have not been widely adopted by the U.S. health care system. National and international expert stakeholders representing health care organizations, insurance companies and payers, employers, patients, researchers, policy makers, health economists, and DMHT companies and the investment community attended two Banbury Forum meetings. The Banbury Forum reviewed the evidence for DMHTs, identified the challenges to successful and sustainable implementation, investigated the factors that contributed to more successful implementation internationally, and developed the following recommendations: guided DMHTs should be offered to all patients experiencing common mental disorders, DMHT products and services should be reimbursable to support integration into the U.S. health care landscape, and an evidence standards framework should be developed to support decision makers in evaluating DMHTs. Reprinted from Psychiatr Serv 2021; 72:677-683, with permission from American Psychiatric Association. Copyright © 2021.