Informing the Future of Integrated Digital and Clinical Mental Health Care: Synthesis of the Outcomes From Project Synergy

BACKGROUND

Globally, there are fundamental shortcomings in mental health care systems, including restricted access, siloed services, interventions that are poorly matched to service users' needs, underuse of personal outcome monitoring to track progress, exclusion of family and carers, and suboptimal experiences of care. Health information technologies (HITs) hold great potential to improve these aspects that underpin the enhanced quality of mental health care.

OBJECTIVE

Project Synergy aimed to co-design, implement, and evaluate novel HITs, as exemplified by the InnoWell Platform, to work with standard health care organizations. The goals were to deliver improved outcomes for specific populations under focus and support organizations to enact significant system-level reforms.

METHODS

Participating health care organizations included the following: Open Arms-Veterans & Families Counselling (in Sydney and Lismore, New South Wales [NSW]); NSW North Coast headspace centers for youth (Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Grafton, Lismore, and Tweed Heads); the Butterfly Foundation's National Helpline for eating disorders; Kildare Road Medical Centre for enhanced primary care; and Connect to Wellbeing North Coast NSW (administered by Neami National), for population-based intake and assessment. Service users, families and carers, health professionals, and administrators of services across Australia were actively engaged in the configuration of the InnoWell Platform to meet service needs, identify barriers to and facilitators of quality mental health care, and highlight potentially the best points in the service pathway to integrate the InnoWell Platform. The locally configured InnoWell Platform was then implemented within the respective services. A mixed methods approach, including surveys, semistructured interviews, and workshops, was used to evaluate the impact of the InnoWell Platform. A participatory systems modeling approach involving co-design with local stakeholders was also undertaken to simulate the likely impact of the platform in combination with other services being considered for implementation within the North Coast Primary Health Network to explore resulting impacts on mental health outcomes, including suicide prevention.

RESULTS

Despite overwhelming support for integrating digital health solutions into mental health service settings and promising impacts of the platform simulated under idealized implementation conditions, our results emphasized that successful implementation is dependent on health professional and service readiness for change, leadership at the local service level, the appropriateness and responsiveness of the technology for the target end users, and, critically, funding models being available to support implementation. The key places of interoperability of digital solutions and a willingness to use technology to coordinate health care system use were also highlighted.

CONCLUSIONS

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the widespread acceptance of very basic digital health solutions, Project Synergy highlights the critical need to support equity of access to HITs, provide funding for digital infrastructure and digital mental health care, and actively promote the use of technology-enabled, coordinated systems of care.

Optimising the integration of technology-enabled solutions to enhance primary mental health care: a service mapping study

Background

Despite the widely acknowledged potential for health information technologies to improve the accessibility, quality and clinical safety of mental health care, implementation of such technologies in services is frequently unsuccessful due to varying consumer, health professional, and service-level factors. The objective of this co-design study was to use process mapping (i.e. service mapping) to illustrate the current consumer journey through primary mental health services, identify barriers to and facilitators of quality mental health care, and highlight potential points at which to integrate the technology-enabled solution to optimise the provision of care based on key service performance indicators.

Methods

Interactive, discussion-based workshops of up to six hours were conducted with representative stakeholders from each participating service, including health professionals, service managers and administrators from Open Arms – Veterans & Families Counselling Service (Sydney), a counselling service for veterans and their families, and five headspace centres in the North Coast Primary Health Network, primary youth mental health services. Service maps were drafted and refined in real time during the workshops. Through both group discussion and the use of post-it notes, participants worked together to evaluate performance indicators (e.g. safety) at each point in the consumer journey (e.g. intake) to indicate points of impact for the technology-enabled solution, reviewing and evaluating differing opinions in order to reach consensus.

Results

Participants (n=84 across participating services) created service maps illustrating the current consumer journey through the respective services and highlighting barriers to and facilitators of quality mental health care. By consensus, the technology-enabled solution as facilitated by the InnoWell Platform was noted to enable the early identification of risk, reduce or eliminate lengthy intake processes, enable routine outcome monitoring to revise treatment plans in relation to consumer response, and serve as a personal data record for consumers, driving person-centred, coordinated care.

Conclusions

Service mapping was shown to be an effective methodology to understand the consumer’s journey through a service and served to highlight how the co-designed technology-enabled solution can optimise service pathways to improve the accessibility, quality and clinical safety of care relative to key service performance indicators, facilitating the delivery of the right care.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-021-06069-0.

Technology-Enabled Solutions for Australian Mental Health Services Reform: Impact Evaluation

Background

Health information technologies (HITs) are becoming increasingly recognized for their potential to provide innovative solutions to improve the delivery of mental health services and drive system reforms for better outcomes.

Objective

This paper describes the baseline results of a study designed to systematically monitor and evaluate the impact of implementing an HIT, namely the InnoWell Platform, into Australian mental health services to facilitate the iterative refinement of the HIT and the service model in which it is embedded to meet the needs of consumers and their supportive others as well as health professionals and service providers.

Methods

Data were collected via web-based surveys, semistructured interviews, and a workshop with staff from the mental health services implementing the InnoWell Platform to systematically monitor and evaluate its impact. Descriptive statistics, Fisher exact tests, and a reliability analysis were used to characterize the findings from the web-based surveys, including variability in the results between the services. Semistructured interviews were coded using a thematic analysis, and workshop data were coded using a basic content analysis.

Results

Baseline data were collected from the staff of 3 primary youth mental health services (n=18), a counseling service for veterans and their families (n=23), and a helpline for consumers affected by eating disorders and negative body image issues (n=6). As reported via web-based surveys, staff members across the services consistently agreed or strongly agreed that there was benefit associated with using technology as part of their work (38/47, 81%) and that the InnoWell Platform had the potential to improve outcomes for consumers (27/45, 60%); however, there was less certainty as to whether their consumers’ capability to use technology aligned with how the InnoWell Platform would be used as part of their mental health care (11/45, 24% of the participants strongly disagreed or disagreed; 15/45, 33% were neutral; and 19/45, 42% strongly agreed or agreed). During the semistructured interviews (n=3) and workshop, participants consistently indicated that the InnoWell Platform was appropriate for their respective services; however, they questioned whether the services’ respective consumers had the digital literacy required to use the technology. Additional potential barriers to implementation included health professionals’ digital literacy and service readiness for change.

Conclusions

Despite agreement among participants that HITs have the potential to result in improved outcomes for consumers and services, service readiness for change (eg, existing technology infrastructure and the digital literacy of staff and consumers) was noted to potentially impact the success of implementation, with less than half (20/45, 44%) of the participants indicating that their service was ready to implement new technologies to enhance mental health care. Furthermore, participants reported mixed opinions as to whether it was their responsibility to recommend technology as part of standard care.

Co-designing the InnoWell Platform to deliver the right mental health care first time to regional youth

OBJECTIVE

Building upon earlier research, a person-centred technology-enabled solution (the InnoWell Platform) is being co-designed and implemented into regional youth primary mental health services to improve clinical safety and service quality.

DESIGN

Co-design methodologies of service pathway mapping and participatory design workshops as well as usability testing guide the development and implementation of the InnoWell Platform.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

headspace centres on the North Coast of New South Wales and their associated communities.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Participation in co-design methodologies, implementation and uptake, identification of youth mental health care needs, and service provision.

RESULTS

Nine service pathway mapping (N = 81 participants) and 10 participatory design (N = 48) workshops and usability testing sessions (N = 30) with youth, their supportive others, health professionals, service managers and administrators have been conducted. Four headspace centres have implemented the InnoWell Platform. To date, 120 youth are using the platform and 96 have completed an initial multidimensional assessment. Of these, the majority reported moderate-to-high psychological distress and a quarter reported experiencing high suicidal thoughts and behaviours with subsequent earlier provision of care. Young people have independently commenced recommended online tools and collaborated on clinical care options with their health professionals.

CONCLUSIONS

Preliminary findings support co-design methodologies for the development of person-centred technology-enabled solutions embedded within youth primary mental health services in regional Australia. The findings further demonstrate that such solutions may improve clinical safety and service quality, which in turn may facilitate the delivery of the right care, first time!

Establishments licensed to serve alcohol and their contribution to police-recorded crime in Australia: further opportunities for harm reduction

OBJECTIVE

Although strategies exist to minimize alcohol-related harms associated with establishments licensed to serve alcohol, such establishments are associated with a disproportionate level of harm. To date, understanding the association between such establishments and alcohol-related harms, and hence the opportunities for reducing harm, has been limited by inadequate information regarding incidents of alcohol-related crime. To address this deficiency, this study was undertaken to describe the association between such establishments and incidents of crime using enhanced police-recorded, alcohol-related crime intelligence.

METHOD

A descriptive analysis was undertaken of intoxicated people who had last consumed alcohol in establishments licensed to serve alcohol (841 bars, 551 licensed social clubs, 11 nightclubs, and 18 other locations) preceding their involvement in police-recorded incidents of violence, disorder, or motor vehicle crashes. The study area encompassed 21 nonmetropolitan police commands in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

RESULTS

Among intoxicated persons involved in incidents of violence, disorder, or motor vehicle crashes, the risk of being recorded as having last consumed alcohol in a bar or nightclub before the incident was at least twice that of licensed social clubs and other establishments. Approximately 20% of establishments accounted for 80% of intoxicated persons involved in such incidents, and 6% of establishments were in the top 20% of establishments for all three offense types.

CONCLUSIONS

The disproportionate burden of alcohol-related crime associated with establishments licensed to serve alcohol may be reduced if harm-reduction strategies address the specific risks posed by bars and nightclubs, and individual high-risk establishments.