Digital Mental Health: Case Study
Healthcare is being digitally disrupted in the same way as many other industries as the explosion of new data, technologies and ability to interact with patients in real-time opens up new possibilities. The system of disease management is moving towards a new model focussed on early detection, prevention and early intervention. Within this emerging paradigm, the future business direction for digital health is beginning to evolve to ensure a continued critical role, specifically with emerging digital medicines/diagnostics.
The Age of Digitalisation
In the UK, 38 million adults access the internet every day. That’s 76% of the adult population. With this growth of the internet, online spaces and smartphone apps, healthcare services are beginning to use these developing technologies to help monitor health, and prevent and treat any problems. Digital health is a wide and varying concept that includes the use of technology for digital record keeping, online booking systems, online repeat prescriptions and some more innovative uses of technology for direct treatment.
While applicable to physical health, there have been strides towards the use of digital health for mental health as a way to use IT to support and improve mental health, including the use of online resources, social media and smartphone applications.
Digital mental health has been associated with benefits such as improved access to services, including online self-help and reduced barriers such as stigma.
Skipping the Waiting List
According to Public Health England, one in six adults will have experienced a common mental health disorder in the past week. Now more than ever, the NHS is under tremendous pressure to provide mental health care to millions of people.
This substantial need for mental health services means that waiting lists can be long, and hard to reach communities, such as ethnic minorities, older populations and young people, are particularly badly affected by the reality of mental health services working at almost full capacity. Good mental health services are now recognised as vital to the NHS and to the health of the nation. With that in mind, the NHS Long Term Plan proposes to significantly increase mental health investment and envisages data and technology as central to transforming services.
So, could a more digital approach improve access to treatments for mental health disorders?
Healios as a Model
As one example of an entirely digitalised process, Healios is a specialist online provider of mental health and neuro-developmental services, offering live video sessions with a clinician, conducted through their purpose-built online clinical platform and self-management tools. They now provide an online alternative to CAMHS services, overcoming the challenges of translating a complex multi-step in-person assessments with a model that involves a dual clinician approach and multidisciplinary team, with the digital model allowing consultations to fit around the lifestyle of the individual and their family.
Since its launch, it has rapidly increased in popularity, with the number of clients soaring exponentially during lockdown. Their work has gained global attention, and it appears alongside other organisations in the ‘Best Practice’ autism diagnosis and support pathway within the Autism Strategy Report at NHS England. Their newly-released app, ThinkNinja, appears in the App Library of the NHS Mental Health, and it has been featured in the BBC Click programme which showcases new technologies and innovations shaping our society. It is now widely acclaimed in its provision of mental health services and is the largest digital provider of ND assessments to the NHS.
So what does this mean?
The future combination of technologies has potential for mental health care to become more personalised. Assessment and intervention will be undertaken with a better understanding of the genetic, behavioural and environmental context of the individual patient. The fascinating concept of empathy and digital - often perceived as mutually exclusive – has in fact been shown to be replicated at least as equally via a digital medium. Healios provides a model for how we can begin to imagine the future of digital mental health. The utilisation of technology to provide individualised care is set to transform mental health services and the workforce who deliver them.
About the author
Clara Chen is a first year medical student at the University of Cambridge, with a particular interest in the application of digital technology to empower healthcare provision. In the future, she hopes to combine medical practice with clinical academia, alongside improving quality of care with accessible and personalised digital medicine. Aside from her studies, Clara enjoys spending her free time playing music, reading, running, and cooking!
References
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