Mental, Social & Digital Resilience – Mental eHealth & Telepsychiatry

Abstract

The Corona crisis is a worldwide crisis, and for a wide range of people a highly individual one. A personal Corona infection, but also the circumstances of the crisis – such as lockdown, precarious and unstable working conditions, individual anxieties, fears and mental load – all of this raises questions concerning psycho-social care and efficacy. Hopes are high for eHealth and mHealth solutions, as well as so-called “Mental Health” Apps, which App-Stores have been flooded with. Questions about their functionality, feasibility, their (therapeutic-/medical) efficacy, but also a lack of standards and practice-oriented R&E in a clinical setting, demand for immediate action, research and development.

In reference to differentiating structural settings (like inpatient vs. outpatient), this consortium aims at researching and developing ICT-solutions for “Mental Health”, by means of innovative and highly practice-oriented methods.

Outcome Summary

The exploratory work that preceded an R&D implementation project proved to be suitable and necessary in this area in order to examine the wide range of parameters with many prerequisites that have to be negotiated in the context of technological-digital research and development in psychiatric care. In view of the diverse challenges, the large number of stakeholders and their environments, a transdisciplinary approach of cooperative research was chosen and the consortium addressed the question of how digitization can support people in their recovery process and in mental crises in the future. As a result, minimum requirements in the sense of “features” were defined, the legal feasibility was explored, and technical minimum standards were defined. Basic system requirements were crystallized from intensive work in the form of group discussions with patients and workshops with specialists in psychiatric and psycho-social care, as well as interviews with extramural institutions and other experts from the field. In the course of the research work carried out, but also as preparation for a subsequent implementation project, an explanatory video was created which is intended to convey the vision of MeHealth: What must digitization be able to do in psychiatry?

Further Information

– mehealth.at
– youtube.com/watch?v=9r3-yp-fDsQ
– The project resulting from the project application funded by the CTS was funded by the FFG, in the program “ICT of the Future” by the Federal Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK), ffg.at.

Video