Evaluation of transition to telehealth models at Barwon Health mental health services

Exploring the rapid implementation and uptake of mental health telehealth services during the COVID 19 pandemic

Challenge

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has catapulted telehealth as a substitute to traditional delivery models in many areas of health, including in mental health. However, historically the uptake of telehealth in mental health has been low. This presents a critical challenge at a time when key leaders nationally are calling for an expansion of mental health services as a means to address the current and developing mental health needs of Australian people

Solution

This evaluation will explore the rapid implementation and uptake of mental health telehealth services at Barwon Health during the COVID-19 pandemic and seek to understand the development, uptake and acceptability of a telehealth service across both clinician and consumer groups.

Impact

The currently available results provide local data and knowledge on telehealth implementation. While the data suggests that telephone was the most frequently used mode of contact over video conferencing within the Barwon Health Mental Health Drug and Alcohol Services, the qualitative data will provide additional detail on the barriers to the use of video conferencing. This should be beneficial to Barwon Health management and to similar health services. Telehealth has already been widely implemented through private and public mental health providers due to COVID-19. Our results may assist in refining telehealth use with public mental health services.

Partners

Steve Moylan, Principal Investigator Barwon Health

Melissa O’Shea, Co-Investigator Deakin Psychology

Mary Lou Chatterton, Co-Investigator Deakin Health Economics

Elijah Marangu, Co-Investigator Deakin Quality & Patient Safety

Gayle Boschert, Co-Investigator Barwon Health

Amy Langbein, Co-Investigator Barwon Health/Deakin University

Cathy Mihalopoulos, Co-Investigator Deakin Health Economics

Kate Morrissy, Deakin Institute for Health Transformation

David Tucker, Office of the DVCR, Deakin University

Links

The rise of telehealth in the coronavirus pandemic could lead to a permanent shift in healthcare

Deakin and Barwon Health delivering telehealth care for community

Project details:

There is strong agreement that the COVID-19 pandemic will give rise to significant mental health impacts. The pandemic has heightened people’s fears for their own health and wellbeing, and exacerbated underlying mental health vulnerabilities. Social distancing measures to suppress the spread of COVID-19 have led to degradation of social and health supports, with consequent negative impacts on vulnerable people, especially those with mental illness (Zhou, Snowswell, Harding, & Bambling, 2020).

In addition, measures to combat the pandemic have seen significant rises in unemployment and economic strain for large sections of the population, with people already disadvantaged being disproportionately impacted. Unfortunately, this coincides with a range of potential barriers to accessing mental health care as mental health services adapt to social distancing measures. As such, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has catapulted telehealth as a substitute to traditional delivery models in many areas of health including in mental health.

Historically, the uptake of telehealth in mental health has been low and this presents a critical challenge at a time when key leaders nationally are calling for an expansion of mental health services as a means to address the current and developing mental health needs of Australian people.

Telehealth services are desirable because they can contribute to increased accessibility, improved patient experience of care and improved cost efficiency of service delivery.

This evaluation will explore the rapid implementation and uptake of mental health telehealth services at Barwon Health during the COVID 19 pandemic. It will seek to understand the development, uptake and acceptability of a telehealth service across both clinician and consumer groups.

It is anticipated that this study will generate new understanding and intelligence on the facilitators and barriers to uptake of telehealth services at Barwon Health, specifically, and integration of telehealth into models of care in regional public mental health services more broadly.