News Editorial Policy Statement

History

At a time of growing interest in telehealth, Telehealth.org launched the Telehealth.org News in 2013 to disseminate general news about telehealth and more specifically, telebehavioral health. Fueled by her own research with early behavioral thought leaders, the Telehealth.org News Editor-in-Chief, Marlene M. Maheu, PhD appealed to the Telehealth.org Board of Directors to support the creation of the Telehealth.org News to combat the false assumptions and misunderstandings that were prevalent at the time (Maheu & Gordon, 2000). Unfortunately, some of those same issues are still alive today, but progress is nonetheless quite visible in the professional community (Glueckauf, Maheu, Drude, Wells, Wang, Gustafson & Nelson, 2018).

Telehealth.org News then, was developed as a weekly community service to disseminate news about telehealth and telebehavioral health. It, therefore, does not seek to weigh in, champion, or otherwise comment on the quality, accuracy, or morality of news. Rather, the mission of the Telehealth.org News is to provide the professional community and other stakeholders with convenient, free access to current telehealth, and especially telebehavioral news.

The following editorial policy was approved by the Telehealth.org Board of Directors in 2019:

Articles in Telehealth.org News

Telehealth.org reviews dozens of telehealth related articles every week prior to the publication of each issue. Only 7-12 articles of potential relevance to the Telehealth.org community are selected. Telehealth.org News is purposely designed to serve as a conduit to conveniently expose readers to key legislative and regulatory updates, professional association policy statements, research, financial reports, innovation, novel and news-making applications to expanding populations served, interprofessional and international developments, and more.

Each article published in the Telehealth.org News identifies the source and provides a link to the source article. When a brief/relevant title and/or description is not readily available from a source article, Telehealth.org exercises editorial rights to abbreviate the title, change the focus so as to draw the reader’s attention to the aspects of an article of particular relevance to the telehealth community, or otherwise summarize the description to fit the Telehealth.org News layout and format.

Decisions to publish or not to publish an article are made at the sole discretion of the Telehealth.org News Staff and are based on factors including but not limited to: reader interest as measured by newsletter open rates, reader feedback and data collection sources; relevance to the industry; timeliness and caliber of writing; as well as space limitations within the publication. Choice of newsletter titles (subject lines) and article titles are based on these same factors.

The Telehealth.org News also disseminates informational articles from the Telehealth.org Blog, where occasional guest bloggers with an informed point of view are accepted at Telehealth.org’s sole discretion. These publications undergo the same rigorous vetting process as articles obtained from other news outlets as described above. To submit an article to the Telehealth.org Blog, send an email here.

When Telehealth.org News articles reflect controversial issues, basic social justice principles are followed. More specifically, Telehealth.org News supports social change through telehealth, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Telehealth.org’s social change agenda is focused on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice. Telehealth.org News seeks to promote sensitivity to and knowledge about oppression and cultural and ethnic diversity by increasing access to needed information, services, and resources. As a free publication, it supports the social justice agenda of creating equality of opportunity; and meaningful participation in decision-making for all people.

News Reporting

Telehealth.org News does not report news from its sources as its own. As a matter of courtesy and transparency, Telehealth.org News always credits information to its source. New content is researched weekly from government documents, newsletters, blogs, magazines, podcasts, books, and broadcasts, and are reported as such.

Telehealth.org does not engage in the publication of rumors. Rather, even “opinion pieces” from sources are regularly examined and vetted for timeliness, relevance, taste, and plausibility. Each article then is approved by at least one informed, licensed telebehavioral health professional before publication.

Corrections

Telehealth.org relies on its sources to conduct needed fact-checking. Readers are invited to communicate directly with news sources if facts in source articles are inaccurate. Because the Telehealth.org News community is large, varied, international, and interprofessional, its voice is loud and far-reaching. It, therefore, recognizes an ethical responsibility to support the Reader in correcting erroneous material and to support the social justice principle of creating an environment of shared decision-making.

In case of reasonable doubt or disagreement about the facts, Telehealth.org will acknowledge that the statement was “imprecise” or “incomplete” even in the face of ambiguity. This statement will be visible to the Telehealth.org community in both the blog and in the subsequent issue of the Telehealth.org News. Readers will be referred to the blog for details of corrections rather than including them in the limited space of the newsletter.

Telehealth.org seeks and will publish a respectful response from anyone criticizing these policies. When the criticism is deemed serious in the sole discretion of Telehealth.org News, Telehealth.org News accepts the obligation to publish the complaint publicly and allow the subject to respond publicly as well. No Reader of Telehealth.org News should feel as if there isn’t a chance to comment.

Also, when a Reader submits acceptable proof of an error by the Telehealth.org News that reaches beyond articles sourced from outside arenas, it is reviewed by Telehealth.org Editorial Staff. Reader notes of appreciation are also invited. Such submissions can be sent here. Submissions may be presented to the Telehealth.org Board of Directors as needed.

If comments are profane, threatening, harassing, or malicious in the sole opinion of Telehealth.org, they will not be published. Readers who wish to comment must accompany all comments with their full name and credentials, including degree, licensure status, and profession. Anonymous comments will not be published.

When a decision to correct a prior statement is reached by the Telehealth.org News Editor, it is published in the Telehealth.org Blog and referenced in the subsequent newsletter within 15 business days of submission by a reader.

Fictional Representation & Deception

Telehealth.org News does not knowingly alter the news that it disseminates. Telehealth.org refrains from publishing fictional names, ages, places, or dates. If confidentiality or the unavoidable conditions of reporting require shielding an identity, Telehealth.org’s preferred solution is to omit or abbreviate the name and explain the omission.

Images

All photographs are either taken by Telehealth.org staff, used as features made available to newsletter publishers as part of the newsletter service purchased by Telehealth.org or purchased or obtained from royalty-free outlets. Adjustments of color or gray-scale are limited to those minimally necessary for clear and accurate reproduction.

Readers having any questions about any of the above policies are encouraged to either publish the comment at the end of this post below or send an email here and include your name, street address, email address, and phone number. You can expect a response within 15 business days.