Lessons Learned or Forgotten? Impacts of COVID-19 on the Future Direction of Global (e-)Mental Health Care

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted lives globally, posing unique challenges to mental health services exposing vulnerability and limitations within these systems. During the course of the pandemic, telecommunications technologies (e-mental health care) have served a critical role in psychiatric care. It is important to understand current lessons learned in e-mental health care and implications for global mental health systems for both emerging from the pandemic and after the pandemic has ended.

There are significant regulatory, policy, and evaluation challenges for global e-mental health impacting patients, clinicians, health systems, and decision-makers. These include complex regulatory issues, difficulties of providing care across boundaries, and keeping pace with the implementation of new technologies in behavioral health. The collaborative development of global standards along with policies, appropriate regulations, and developing new models of research and development opens the possibility of improved access to care across national boundaries.