JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Australia’s mental healthcare system has long been fragmented and under-resourced, with services falling well short of demand. In response, the World Economic Forum has recently called for the rapid deployment of smarter, digitally-enhanced health services to facilitate effective care coordination and address issues of demand. The University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre (BMC) has developed an innovative digital health solution which incorporates two components: a highly personalised and measurement-based (data-driven) model of youth mental health care; and, a health information technology (HIT) registered on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. Importantly, research into implementation of such solutions considers education and training of clinicians to be essential to adoption and optimisation of use in standard clinical practice. The BMC’s Youth Mental Health and Technology Program has subsequently developed a comprehensive education and training program to accompany implementation of the digital health solution.

Objective:

This paper describes the protocol for an evaluation study to assess the effectiveness of the education and training program on the adoption and optimisation of use of the digital health solution in service delivery. It also describes the proposed tools to assess the impact of training on knowledge and skills of mental health clinicians.

Methods:

The evaluation study will use the Kirkpatrick Evaluation Model as a framework with four levels of analysis: Reaction (to education and training), Learning (knowledge acquired), Behaviour (practice change) and Results (client outcomes). Quantitative and qualitative data will be collected using a mixed-methods approach, including: evaluation forms; pre- and post-knowledge questionnaires; skill development and behaviour change scales; as well as a real-time clinical practice audit.

Results:

This project is funded by philanthropic funding from Future Generation Global. Ethics approval has been granted via Sydney Local Health District’s Human Research Ethics Committee. At the time of this publication, clinicians and their services were being recruited to this study. The first results are expected to be submitted for publication in 2021.

Conclusions:

The education and training program teaches clinicians the necessary knowledge, skills to assess, monitor and manage complex needs, mood and psychotic syndromes as well as trajectories of youth mental ill-health using a HIT that facilitates a highly personalised assessment and measurement-based model of care. The digital health solution may therefore guide clinicians to help young people recover low functioning associated with subthreshold diagnostic presentations and prevent progression to more serious mental ill-health.