Since 2019, through the Congresos en Salud Mental Digital (Digital Mental Health Consortium) and a growing international network of practitioners, educators, and policymakers, we’ve been co-developing a field: digital mental health.
This work is not just academic — it’s grounded in the clinical trenches, built from global collaboration, and now contributing to the wider conversation on AI governance in health.
As the WHO and its Global Initiative on AI for Health (GI-AI4H) launch a powerful strategic agenda, we reflect on how our practice-based work aligns, complements, and extends these priorities — especially in mental health, where systems remain fragmented and innovation often outpaces regulation.
2022–2023: Clinical Practice Meets Digital Transformation
Our early work focused on practice-first resources to support clinicians navigating digital transitions:
- Manual de Telesalud Mental (2022) – A foundational handbook on technologies in clinical mental health practice.
- Experiencias en Ciberpsicología (2022) – Case-based reflections from Mexico and Spain on the human and ethical dimensions of digital care.
- Casos Clínicos en Telesalud Mental (2023) – An applied casebook capturing diagnostic, therapeutic, and ethical complexity in digital consultations.
These works were developed in collaboration with national universities, regulatory bodies, and professional associations across Ibero-America.
2024: The Ethical Core
In 2024, we published Ethics in Digital Mental Health, a comprehensive guide for professionals in training. It introduces:
- Applied principles of digital ethics and informed consent
- Frameworks for accountability in tech-assisted psychotherapy
- Tools for supervising and evaluating digital clinical practice
This book has been used in training programs across Spain and Latin America, and lays the foundation for deeper integration with health governance.
2025: Governance at the Forefront
This year, our latest book marks a shift in scale. Governing Digital Mental Health: Introducing the 5P Model and the Digital Behavioral Health Expert (Springer, 2025) proposes:
- A multilevel governance model (5P) aligned with AI policy, rights-based care, and systemic transformation
- A new professional role — the Digital Behavioral Health Expert (DBHE) — designed to bridge clinical, ethical, and technological expertise
It offers a model not only for regulation, but for professional re-skilling, licensure innovation, and the integration of mental health into national AI strategies.
🔗 Springer link: https://link.springer.com/book/9783031947629
Aligning with the WHO GI-AI4H Strategy
The WHO’s recent timeline on AI for health governance (2021–2025) highlights strategic priorities around ethics, regulation, implementation, and public infrastructure. Our Cibersalud timeline — grounded in real-world clinical challenges — mirrors these pillars from the ground up:
- Ethics → Addressed through training, consent models, and supervisory tools
- Regulation → Informed by casebooks, cross-border legal dialogue, and practice standards
- Implementation → Piloted via clinician education and congresses in three continents
- Operations → Embodied in the DBHE role and modular curricula aligned with workforce reform
Conclusion: What Comes Next?
The challenge is no longer identifying the gaps — it’s building the governance and capacity to close them. We believe the 5P Model and DBHE framework are field-ready tools that can support WHO, national regulators, and mental health systems in delivering ethically aligned, equity-oriented AI integration.
Let’s build the next chapter together.
📘 Governing Digital Mental Health (Springer, 2025) is now available.
This article was originally published by Juanjo Martí Noguera on LinkedIn and is republished here with permission.
