A new project led by the Digital Health Collaborative Research Center is working on a care navigation platform to help patients and healthcare providers navigate the healthcare system. mental.
The initiative also involves the University of Canberra, Swinburne University of Technology, ACT Capital Health Network’s primary health network, the Psicost Research Consortium and the charity Bupa Foundation.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
The team designed and developed a multi-level, multimodal, and multimodal framework and related tools called the Local Mental Health Activity Navigation Chart (MChart), currently being tested and reviewed for effectiveness in the ACT.
It comes in two variants: MCart-P for clinicians, decision makers, and planners, and MCart-C for consumers and caregivers.
A team from the Institute for Health Research at the University of Canberra has spent the past five years mapping mental health services across the country. According to Professor Luis Salvador-Carulla, co-director of the institute, they completed the description of those terms in one-third of the PHNs covering half of the Australian population while their mapping method was well established. Tested in more than 35 countries globally.
“Our next goal is to use this knowledge to create the best navigator for the mental health care system in Australia,” he said.
WHY IT IMPORTANT
According to the DHCRC, Australia’s complex and fragmented mental health care system is creating a major barrier for patients to access effective mental health treatment. The MCart project aims to assist all stakeholders in navigating such a fragmented system.
“The MCart navigation platform has a unique potential impact in this environment – to improve [the] efficiency of the care system, reducing care waste, and increasing [the] welfare of the people [in] needed,” said DHCRC CEO Annette Schmiede.
After testing in the ACT, the team plans to scale up MCart adoption at a national level, according to Swinburne associate professor Amir Aryani.
TREND TO BIGGER
Over the past two years, DHCRC has supported projects that also aim to improve access to mental health care and the performance of mental health providers.
Last year, it funded AU$2 million ($1.4 million) for Monash University’s Telehealth Enhancement Project is creating new telehealth solutions to make existing web-based video telehealth services available to the public. Mental health becomes more affordable and safer.
In 2021, a DHCRC project in South Australia tested a digital analytics tool for adverse event risk prediction in mental health departments across the Central and South Adelaide Local Health Network.
