JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Highly personalised care is significantly improved by technology platforms that assess and track patient outcomes. Despite this, evidence regarding how to successfully implement technology in real world mental health settings is limited.

Objective:

This study aimed to naturalistically monitor and evaluate how a health information technology (HIT) platform was utilised within two real-world mental health service settings, to gain practical insights into how HIT can be implemented and sustained to improve mental health service delivery.

Methods:

A HIT (The Innowell Platform) was naturally implemented into two youth mental health services in Sydney, Australia. Online surveys (n = 19) and implementation logs were used to investigate staff attitudes towards the technology pre- and post-implementation.

Results:

After implementation, staff were nearly 3 times more likely to agree that Innowell would “improve care for their clients” (25% agreed pre-implementation compared to 70% post implementation). Despite this, there was also an increase in the number of staff who disagree that Innowell would improve care (from 8% to 20%). There was also decreased uncertainty (from 50% to 30%) about the willingness of the service to “implement the technology for its intended purpose” with the statement. Staff were more likely to be uncertain about whether “colleagues in my service are receptive to changes in clinical processes” (“not sure” rose from 42% to 70%). They were also more likely to report that their service “already provides the best mental health care” (agreement rose from 58% to 80%). Following implementation: a greater proportion of participants reported that HIT enabled shared or collaborative decision-making with young people (+30.4%); enabled clients to proactively work on their mental health care through digital technologies (+30.4%); and, improved their response to suicidal risk (+19.6%).

Conclusions:

This study raises important questions about why clinicians, who have the same training and support to use a technology, develop more polarised opinions on its’ usefulness. It appears that uptake of HIT is ultimately driven by a clinicians’ underlying beliefs and attitudes towards clinical practice and technology, rather than their knowledge of, or ease of use of, the HIT in question.