Telehealth Competency Evaluation Tools: A Scoping Review
Clinical Snapshot
PICO Framework
| P — Population | Healthcare professionals and students across health disciplines undergoing telehealth education or practice |
| I — Intervention | Telehealth competency evaluation tools (validated or researcher-created), including assessments of communication, technology proficiency, and related telehealth competency domains |
| C — Comparator | No formal comparator; review maps the landscape of available tools and their psychometric properties |
| O — Outcomes | Identification and characterisation of telehealth competency evaluation tools; domains of competency assessed; psychometric properties (validity, reliability); breadth of competency coverage across disciplines |
Bottom Line
This scoping review maps the current landscape of telehealth competency evaluation tools across healthcare education and finds it critically underdeveloped. Of 1,217 screened articles, only 36 met inclusion criteria, and the vast majority of identified tools were researcher-created instruments lacking psychometric validation. Competency assessment was narrowly focused on communication skills and technology proficiency, with no studies evaluating the appropriate clinical use of telehealth or digital health equity — two domains of growing regulatory and ethical importance. For senior clinicians and health educators, the key message is clear: there is currently no robust, validated, cross-disciplinary toolkit for assessing telehealth competency, and the field is operating largely on unvalidated instruments. This has direct implications for accreditation, credentialing, and quality assurance in telehealth training programmes. In the Australian context, where telehealth is now a permanent feature of MBS-funded care, this gap is particularly consequential. Workforce development bodies, professional colleges, and health education institutions should prioritise collaborative development and psychometric validation of telehealth competency assessment tools that span all competency domains and are applicable across disciplines. This review provides a necessary and timely evidence base for that agenda, though its own methodological limitations — particularly the ambiguous search date range and absence of grey literature — warrant cautious interpretation.
Key Findings
Effect Size: Not applicable (scoping review; no pooled effect size calculated)
Primary Outcome: Identification and characterisation of telehealth competency evaluation tools used in healthcare education and practice
Nnt Or Sensitivity: 36 of 1,217 screened articles met final inclusion criteria (2.96% inclusion rate). Most tools were researcher-created and lacked psychometric validation. Few validated/reliable tools directly measuring telehealth competencies were identified. No included studies evaluated appropriate telehealth use or digital health disparities as competency domains.
Clinical Application
The review's findings are directly actionable for curriculum developers and accreditation bodies: the identified gap in validated evaluation tools signals an urgent need for psychometrically rigorous tool development before standardised telehealth competency assessment can be feasibly implemented at scale. In the interim, educators should exercise caution when using researcher-created tools without established validity or reliability evidence, and should document the psychometric limitations of any tools employed. In Australia, telehealth has been permanently embedded in the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) following its rapid expansion during the COVID-19 pandemic, with ongoing regulatory refinement by the Department of Health and Aged Care. The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) has published national digital health strategies emphasising workforce capability, and the RACGP has developed telehealth-specific guidance within its Standards for General Practices. However, no nationally validated telehealth competency assessment tool has been mandated by AHPRA, the Medical Board of Australia, or the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA). This review's findings directly support the case for Australian investment in validated telehealth competency frameworks — particularly given the TGA's increasing engagement with digital health technologies and the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards' emphasis on workforce competency. The absence of tools assessing digital health disparities is particularly pertinent in the Australian context given telehealth equity challenges for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, rural and remote populations, and culturally and linguistically diverse patients. Healthcare educators, clinical training programme directors, health professional registration bodies, and telehealth workforce development planners across all health disciplines — particularly relevant to nursing, medicine, allied health, and pharmacy education programmes incorporating telehealth training
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Telehealth is an integral part of healthcare. Exposure to telehealth education is essential for both students and health care professionals to support its effective adoption and appropriate utilization. This scoping review aims to explore whether and which telehealth competencies are being assessed and the methods used to evaluate them among health care professionals and students. METHODS: An electronic literature search was performed using six electronic databases between January 2024 and February 2025. We included studies where telehealth competencies or their components were evaluated by some type of tool (validated or researcher created). Strict inclusion and exclusion criteria were used, and each article was evaluated by at least two reviewers. RESULTS: Out of 1,217 articles screened by title and abstract, 75 met inclusion criteria, with 36 of those selected for inclusion in this review. Participants were evaluated mostly by researcher-created tools that lacked psychometric properties or adapted nontelehealth evaluation tools. Few validated/reliable tools directly measured telehealth competencies. DISCUSSION: The results of this review illustrate there exists a lack of available validated/reliable evaluation tools to appraise telehealth competencies. Few studies included an evaluation of all telehealth competencies but rather focused only on communication and technology proficiency; none evaluated the appropriate use of telehealth or digital disparities. CONCLUSIONS: More research is needed to develop validated telehealth evaluation tools that can be used across disciplines and encompass all telehealth competencies. Additionally, true research methods are needed to adequately assess the impact of telehealth education on the performance and confidence of learners.
References
- 1.Garber, K., Jones, H., Chew, C., Moore, J., Rutledge, C., Boehning, A., Sorenson, M., Logan, A., & Chike-Harris, K. (2026). Telehealth competency evaluation tools: A scoping review. Telemedicine Journal and e-Health: The Official Journal of the American Telemedicine Association. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/15305627261440779
Related Research
Rheumatic diseases clinics of North America
Demystifying Artificial Intelligence: Key Concepts with Examples in Rheumatology
2 Aug 2026
JMIR research protocols
Large Language Models in German Continuing Medical Education Assessments: Protocol for a Fully Crossed Experimental Study
30 July 2026
PloS one
"We'll have to see how it works": An interview study to understand collaborative practices in interdisciplinary artificial intelligence and healthcare research.
24 July 2026
This content is for educational purposes for healthcare professionals only and does not constitute clinical advice. Clinical decisions should be based on individual patient assessment, current guidelines, and appropriate specialist consultation. Editorial Standards · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service