Evan Dumas 

You’re listening to Group Practice Tech, a podcast by Person Centered Tech, where we help mental health group practice owners ethically and effectively leverage tech to improve their practices. I’m your co-host, Evan Dumas.

 

Liath Dalton 

And I’m Liath Dalton, and we are Person Centered Tech.

 

Liath Dalton 

This episode is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is a robust online practice management and electronic health record system to support you in growing your thriving practice. Therapy Notes is a complete practice management system with all the functionality you need to manage client records, meet with clients remotely, create rich documentation, schedule appointments and bill insurance all right at your fingertips. To get two free months of Therapy Notes as a new Therapy Notes user go to therapynotes.com and use promo code PCT.

 

Evan Dumas 

Hello and welcome to Episode 614: AI Is Just The Latest Example – Why Training Matters For Every New Tool.

 

Liath Dalton 

This is maybe a self evident truth, but one that we thought was worth addressing, because sometimes things that we think are self evident aren’t always and a good reminder. And of course, contextualization is always beneficial.

 

Liath Dalton 

So essentially, when it comes to any tool, whether that be a technological tool or a therapeutic modality that you’re employing within your practice, proficiency and competence is required when using that tool.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Liath Dalton 

We don’t just jump into the deep end and try it out in real world practice with clients.

 

Evan Dumas 

Some people do.

 

Liath Dalton 

Well, we we should not be.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

I, what I’m saying here, I guess, is more aspirational.

 

Evan Dumas  

Yeah, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

Because the reality of it is that Evan and I have had, in some instances, a front row seat to what can happen when training to gain proficiency and competence and comfort is not in place and how that goes awry, and can impact both the client, of course, but also the therapist and their confidence and practice going forward.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Liath Dalton 

I’m actually reminded of a sort of joke that that our late founder, the beloved Roy Huggins, used to make about therapists, which was that we need a CE to clean a toilet.

 

Evan Dumas 

Ha ha, that’s funny. Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

He would say, you know, if a therapist is going to clean the toilet, they really need a CE on how to do it first.

 

Liath Dalton 

And that’s making light of something, of course, but when it comes to anything that is handling client information, or that is impacting the actual clinical care that’s being delivered as well, it’s really imperative that there be training so that misuse, even with the best intentions, doesn’t occur in ways that could, when we’re talking about technology, the impact can be loss of safeguards for that information that then can lead to client harm, right?

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Liath Dalton 

If we’re talking about clinical skills or modality, then that very much can can have negative consequences for a client and their clinical outcomes and the effectiveness of the therapeutic alliance. And really, with AI, we have the combination of those two things, right?

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

It’s, it’s, well, AI isn’t a modality because of how it is becoming involved when, when used for clinical documentation or client conversations or communications, it does have direct clinical implications.

 

Evan Dumas 

Oh, definitely, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

As well, right? So, AI is a time where we have both the sort of, this is new tech, but also this is something new that really does impact clinical care too.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

So what does that mean? It means we’ve got to have training. And this is something that the ethics codes for each of the primary mental health professions are really clear about.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Liath Dalton 

Right? That expectation across the APA, the ACA, NASW and the AAMFT is consistent. That you have to be competent in the tools and methods that you use. You have to understand their risks and limitations, and that you must pursue training when something new is introduced into your practice.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

So again, going back to that clinical modality analogy, you wouldn’t decide to try EMDR or exposure therapy with a client just because you’ve heard from colleagues about how effective it’s been in their practice, or read a few journal articles about it, right?

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

You wouldn’t say I am a good clinician, so I’ll just figure it out as I go. You get trained first.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

And Evan, you were making a great point as well about how we’ve been through this sort of new technology that seems like it’s really rocking the practice landscape before.

 

Evan Dumas 

Totally. Yeah, Person Centered Tech. Back in our early days, we talked about telehealth, when it was so niche. When people were like, That’s a weird way to do things, et cetera. And you know, we’d help them think about the clinical implications, how to do it well. And then people were able to pass that knowledge of training and that assurance of training on to their clients. And then, boom. We all went through the pandemic. And we all had to shift, if we’d never done it before. And you know, a lot of people just dove into telehealth without any training, and were super flustered and frustrated, and we were there to help provide that training and that normalizing and saying, hey, people have been doing this. Here’s how to do it right. Here’s how to show that you’ve been trained. And now we’re even seeing states finally catch up and require telehealth training. If you do telehealth, because it is modality, it does impact the client clinician relationship, and we recommend, if you’ve never been trained on it, and you do it every day, or you do it once in a while, get trained on it. It is different than being in person.

 

Liath Dalton 

Yes, it is. It is not exactly functionally equivalent, and we have to be really cognizant of what the differences are and what their implications are, and how to accommodate for them so that it can be, I mean, the catchphrase is standards based, clinically effective teletherapy, right?

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Liath Dalton 

And even going back further, both in PCTs history and in the history of the profession, evolving alongside the advent and incorporation of new technology, even pre telehealth being a primary focus of Person Centered Tech, our actual origin story comes out of giving consultations to colleagues on how to manage email. Next step. 

 

Evan Dumas 

Cool.

 

Liath Dalton 

That’s, that’s where it was sort of born for Roy, and then grew from there. And something Eric has brought up in recent Office Hours sessions in the context of AI, was there was a big panic when the telephone became part of our technology landscape, and caused major panic and concern, initially, of like, how is this going to impact care, and what if you answer when a client calls, and do you have to answer? And just all sorts of things that now seem almost like silly questions or concerns in retrospect, right? But the reason that they seem that way is only because we now have an established knowledge base as well as practice and information gained from that in-practice experience to know how to use it effectively and safely, and that’s exactly what we need to do with AI.

 

Liath Dalton 

And I think that one area where that maybe is getting lost sight of is because the AI is proliferating through so much of our lives, right?

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

Not just that you’re thinking, likely about AI in the context of your practice, but you’re encountering it in every space and virtually every action that you might be having, right? And because it seems so ubiquitous, the I think maybe it’s easier to lose sight of how significant the implications of its use are and where the standards from the ethics codes really do give useful guidance.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Liath Dalton 

And it also doesn’t make it that challenging of a bar, right? Don’t want to just dip our toes into it and try it out with with client info, that we do know. That was sort of how it was playing out in the first wave of AI use, about two years ago, right?

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

Testing out how well chatGPT could write a progress note, comes comes to mind. So training so that there is an understanding of risks and limitations, so that you have competence and confidence and are able to both ethically and effectively leverage it in your practice, is the the way to proceed.

 

Liath Dalton 

Which is exactly why we are focused on creating training resources and supportive guidance to provide that training and framework. Thankfully, there are fantastic experts, not just our team on this, but also when it comes to AI use for documentation, the marvelous Dr Maelisa McCaffrey from QA Prep.

 

Liath Dalton 

So that sort of leads us to what’s most immediate in terms of meeting this training need, which is our next live CE offering, which is on how to evaluate AI and incorporate it into your practice and workflow ethically and effectively. We are really looking forward to it.

 

Evan Dumas 

Oh, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

We of course, have had a number of trainings on AI over the last couple of years, but it’s rapidly evolving, and we have more information, more specificity from ethics codes, more platforms that have been tried and evaluated, and so we’re now at a point of having a really viable framework and the ability to provide a training that meets that need to have competence to be able to incorporate it into your practice.

 

Liath Dalton 

So if AI is something you’re currently utilizing in your practice, and you haven’t done a full training and don’t yet have what, what would maybe meet the the ethics code standards of confidence and proficiency and a fully fleshed out understanding of risks and limitations and how to manage those, then definitely check it out. We will include the link to the training in our show notes, and it will, as all of our trainings are, be offered live and then available as an on demand CE training as well. So even if you can’t join us for the live discussion and presentation, you’ll be able to get both the content and the CE from the on demand version.

 

Liath Dalton 

So just to end on a little PSA note of as the landscape shifts and new modalities emerge, new technologies emerge, the way to incorporate those and navigate those changes into your practice is going to rely, in large part, on quality training that supports you in that process.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

Any final words of wisdom, Evan, as an educator yourself?

 

Evan Dumas 

Just that we’re all in this together, in that these tools will come out before there are trainings on them, and then you don’t have to learn on your own. You can reach out to people who spend way more time consulting, learning and how to do this. And we’re here for you on that. So any tech that you’re anxious about, we’re going to try to help you be less anxious about.

 

Liath Dalton 

Yes, the dispelling anxiety is a big factor, and one that actually came up so much during the shift to telehealth, right? Clinicians who felt confident and competent in their ability to deliver standards based clinically effective care over telehealth had a much better adoption rate and smooth adoption process among their clients, right?

 

Liath Dalton 

There’s a big difference between feeling kind of unsure or just like, well, we’re forced into this, and I don’t really know what I’m doing yet or how this works, but we’re just going to do it because we don’t have a choice.

 

Liath Dalton 

And I know how how to do this. I’ve got all of the tools that I know are safe and secure and meet our needs to make it possible and smooth, and here’s how we do it and provide that like, confident and smooth onboarding process, that really did translate.  Like, there is a lot of data about the difference that that made.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

And so that’s something that should be, I think, replicated in how we’re onboarding, if you’re opting to use AI in your practice, in how you discuss that with clients and address concerns they may have. Because they may have had experiences with other providers, like maybe a healthcare provider, not speaking to the risks or how they would address them, or what safeguards they have in place, and maybe just saying, Oh, I’m using AI dictation for notes. Is it okay if I record our session or appointment and having their phone right there. I’ve experienced that with healthcare providers.

 

Liath Dalton 

That certainly kind of creates an opportunity where you can set yourself apart from the other contacts that clients may having with AI in the healthcare space, and demonstrating, yet again, the care that you have for them and for the safety and security of their healthcare information. And that sort of trust building and showing the thought and intention and care that you’ve put into something is useful as well, in terms of strengthening the therapeutic alliance, right? Trust is core in that, and so this is an area where that can be further developed.

 

Liath Dalton 

Thanks for listening, and we’ll chat to you next week.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, talk to you next week, everybody.

 

Liath Dalton 

This has been Group Practice Tech. You can find us at personcenteredtech.com. For more podcast episodes, you can go to personcenteredtech.com/podcast or click podcast on the menu bar.