B7 Improving on "Best Practices": Lessons from an FHT-Based Client-Centered e-Mental Health Project

Theme 7. Clinical innovations for specific populations

Presentation Details

  • Date: Wednesday, October 25, 2017
  • Concurrent Session B
  • Time: 3:30pm-4:15pm
  • Room:
  • Style: Presentation (information provided to audience, with opportunity for audience to ask question)
  • Focus: Balance between both (e.g. Presentation of a best-practice guideline that combines research evidence, policy issues and practical steps for implementation)
  • Target Audience: Leadership (ED, clinical lead, board chair, board member, etc.), Clinical providers, Representatives of stakeholder/partner organizations

Learning Objectives

  • Upon completion, participants should be able to…
    1. Identify the key components making up a treatment process map
    2. Comprehend the benefits and limitations of e-screening tools  Recognize traps in clinic decision-making flow and how to overcome them
    3. Understand treatment e-monitoring tools and how they can be used to enhance provider behaviors and client outcomes
    4. Classify traditional and e-treatment resources so that they can be allocated more effectively
    5. Expand the use of client-centered methods to create a more effective circle of care

Summary/Abstract Our Family Health Team is presently leading an e-health project inspired by an Ontario Health Technologies Fund grant application. In collaboration with a private health internet technology company we have been introducing a client-centered mental health web application into a rural community in a stepwise process that began in January, 2017. Participants include mental health providers with a variety of agencies including CMHA, addiction services, crisis services, community psychiatric services, private practice and family health teams along with consumers in the area of Huron and Perth counties in Southwestern Ontario. Use of a prototype client-centered e-mental health system will be reviewed with respect to potential barriers and ethical concerns as well as implications concerning mental health referral patterns, treatment planning and implementation, allocation of resources, and treatment outcomes. The project is revealing some surprising findings concerning common assumptions about best practices for mental health symptom screening, clinical diagnosis, treatment decision-making and the delivery of treatment in community settings.

Presenters

  • Robert Shepherd, Psychologist, Huron Community Family Health Team
  • Kelly Buchanan, Executive Director, Huron Community Family Health Team