A02 – So you Want to Treat Mental Health Concerns by Playing on your Phone?: Augmenting Provider Digital Aptitude in Integrated Primary Care

Summary

Mobile apps can provide a means to address healthcare disparities and combat common barriers to accessing psychiatric care experienced by underserved populations being cared for in Integrated Care (IC) settings. Technology use such as mobile apps may help scaffold treatment, increase patient autonomy and access, and ease provider burden as new evidence suggests patients across the socioeconomic spectrum are interested in using apps to supplement behavioral health treatment and more mental health apps are available than ever before. Yet challenges remain in understanding feasibility aspects related to the integration of technology as little guidance exists for medical and behavioral health integrated primary care providers interested in incorporating technologies such as mobile apps in treatment within these settings. Chief among these challenges is how to assist providers with navigating and helping patients trouble shoot digital health tools such as mobile operating systems, apps, and identifying quality mental health apps in a digital marketplace. Attendees, at any stage of their education or career, will learn about the process and results of a study that explored the implementation and use of online learning modules that aim to augment providers digital navigation skills, use of a shared decision-making model for mobile apps, and how to effectively evaluate mobile mental health apps in order to scaffold treatment and augment patient autonomy in treatment. The presentation will also include descriptive statistics, survey results, and future directions will be discussed.