Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Mar 5, 2025
Date Accepted: Jun 9, 2025
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Co-designing A Mental Health Referral System in Rural Australia
ABSTRACT
Background:
In rural Australia, geographical isolation, limited resources, and complex healthcare navigation create significant barriers to mental health care access. Mental healthcare professionals and organisations often work in segregation, exacerbating existing barriers. Digital technology provides an opportunity to improve communication between providers and streamline workflows while supporting a diverse range of consumers.
Objective:
This co-design study aimed to identify rural community needs and develop digital solutions to enhance mental health service delivery pathways.
Methods:
Using design-thinking methodology, we conducted focus groups and workshops with 17 participants (7 consumers and carers, 10 healthcare professionals) from a rural region to understand mental health service needs, systemic challenges, and design potential digital solutions. Thematic analysis followed a grounded theory approach, involving systematic coding and theme development through an iterative consensus process.
Results:
Access to mental healthcare emerged as the central theme. Rural community participants reported strong community connections but faced challenges including limited technological innovation and substantial travel burdens. Healthcare professionals highlighted critical systemic pressures: under-resourcing, overwhelmed clinicians with extensive waitlists, and complex referral processes. Both groups identified overlapping barriers in service limitations and system navigation. During the design phase, we developed personas capturing consumer and healthcare professional experiences and conceptualized an integrated digital solution comprising a healthcare professional dashboard and a consumer-facing app with carer access to enhance service coordination.
Conclusions:
The study demonstrated strong stakeholder support for implementing an integrated digital solution to enhance rural mental health service delivery. Further research is required to test, optimize, and scale the solution.
Citation
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Copyright
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