Best Care, First Time: Optimising Youth Mental Health Services Using Digital Technologies

The Youth Mental Health and Technology team at the Brain and Mind Centre aims to change the way in which clinical care is delivered to young people with emerging mental health disorders. To do this, we are utilising sophisticated digital technology and systems modelling to shift the way that services deliver care, to modernise and connect the previously disconnected mental health system in Australia, allowing young people to seamlessly move through the system and receive the best care as required. This work is made possible by the Bupa Health Foundation, one of Australia’s leading charitable organisations committed to addressing the health needs of the Australian community to help people live longer, healthier, happier lives. The investment provided by the Bupa Health Foundation, and their ongoing support of and collaboration with the research team, speaks to the value, and progressive nature of this work. This report provides on overview of the current research project (‘Can digitally-supported care pathways deliver better care for young people with emerging mood or psychotic disorders?’), and importantly, aims to promote the potential of this work to the broader mental health community, including policy-makers, funders, service managers, and clinicians. By publicly advocating for the adoption of digital technologies, and the application of systems modelling approaches, it is possible to bring the exponential benefits of these under-utilised methods to the forefront of mental health care, and mental health care research, in Australia. This highly translational work is not limited to sitting within a circle of academic papers, but can affect change in real-world mental health care settings almost immediately – through the adoption of digital technologies, which can enable a more accessible, effective and connected mental health system, directly benefiting the young people who need to use it.