Using digital tech to design and deliver better mental health services: Perspectives from Australia and the USA
Imagine if someone had told you, when you were a child, that in the year 2018 you could summon a taxi, takeaway, or even a hairdresser direct to your door via an app?
Imagine if they had told you that you would be able to videocall your family, for free, from the palm of your hand?
Imagine if someone had told you, instead of watching whatever happened to be on the TV, you would be able to choose from 1,000s of films to stream instantly to any device you wanted?
You may or may not have believed that was possible. Digital technology has truly transformed every aspect of our lives.
Now consider this.
How has your personal experience of the NHS has changed over the same length of time?
In the years to come, we all hope that advances in medical science will lead to new treatment breakthroughs in mental health. At the same time, we all hope that researchers find new applications for existing technology in delivering better care for people using mental health services.
Here and now, we can all learn much about how to design and deliver better mental health services using technology by those already doing it. There is also much we can learn from other sectors in terms of improving overall user experience.
There are brilliant examples of this already happening right here at home in the NHS. There are also interesting examples which we have far less opportunity to hear about for no other reason than time and geography.
This report focuses on what we can learn from two very different healthcare systems - Australia and the United States of America.
