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

• DOI: 10.1176/appi.ps.202000561
• Publication Date: 2021-01-20T08:13:21Z
• Authors: David C. Mohr; Francisca Azocar; Andrew Bertagnolli; Tanzeem Choudhury; Paul Chrisp; Richard Frank; Henry Harbin; Trina Histon; Debra Kaysen; Camille Nebeker; Derek Richards; Stephen M. Schueller; Nickolai Titov; John Torous; Patricia A. Areán
• Keywords: Mental health financing; Mental health access; Consensus; 330; Administrative Personnel; 610; United States; 3. Good health; 03 medical and health sciences; Mental Health; 0302 clinical medicine; mHealth; Mental health policy; Mobile technology; Humans; Digital mental health treatment (DMHT); Delivery of Health Care; Mental health access; Mental health financing; Mental health policy; Mobile technology; mHealth.

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.