A game of two halves – from digital expert to digital exclusion

A game of two halves – from digital expert to digital exclusion

by | Nov 23, 2013 | #mHabitat | 6 comments

This week I experienced the extremes of digital expertise and digital exclusion, and it crystallised in my mind the enormous gap between them. From conversations with informatics experts about big data, through to conversations with clinicians about the challenges of mobile phone access for people with chaotic lives, I was struck by how far apart these two groups are and wondered what conversations could bring them closer together – because if digital is going to make a really positive difference to people accessing health services, it has to be solidly grounded in their experiences as well as what they need and what they want. Digital experts To begin with the experts – the launch of the Leeds Health Innovation Lab brought together mobile app developers and big data analysts as well as IT specialists and many others. The lab offers a new open platform with a variety of different data sets against which people can develop and test out digital solutions. I furiously scribbled down words such as openEHR, skunkworks, archetypes and APIs with a note to self to go home and make sense of it all later. We had a small group discussion about how to keep the patient or citizen at the heart of the lab and I was struck by the challenge of bridging such specific expert knowledge to people not already immersed in the technology and vice versa. Digitally excluded In stark contrast, I also spent time with our Assertive Outreach Team which supports the most vulnerable people, who often do not want to have any contact with services at all. People who use the...
Would you like to get involved in #DigiHealthLab?

Would you like to get involved in #DigiHealthLab?

by | Nov 17, 2013 | #mHabitat | 2 comments

Recently I attended the launch of MindTech – a Healthcare Technology Co-operative (HTC) based in Nottingham which will develop and test digital technologies in mental health care.  There is clearly tons of energy and a momentum building for digital in mental health but the range of apps and other digital tools can be bewildering. Where do you even start? In Leeds we hope to make sense of it all through #DigiHealthLab – a new locally funded initiative that aims make a positive difference to people experiencing mental health difficulties in my home city. I’ve introduced #DigiHealthLab in a previous post which you can find here. Over the next year (and possibly more) #DigiHealthLab will explore the use of digital tools in mental health services.  Our lab will bring people together to test out how digital can play a role in improving experience and outcomes. It might be about procuring existing digital products that are already out there or it might be about developing something from scratch – who knows! Working together collaboratively We do know that co-design will be at the heart of our approach – I’m really excited about the opportunity to collaborate with people accessing services and practitioners from the outset – a proper team effort from start to finish and one which I believe will be critical to how successful we are. Who we’ll be working with We plan to begin by collaborating with small teams made up of people using and working in the Yorkshire Centre for Eating Disorders, Chronic Fatigue Service and a Community Mental Health Team. But we are keen to know who...
‘Difficult status coming up’ – tweeting direct from the ward

‘Difficult status coming up’ – tweeting direct from the ward

by | Nov 10, 2013 | mental health, NHS stuff, social media | 6 comments

In October Helen shared her mental health inpatient experience, as it happened from the ward, and on the most public of platforms – Twitter. I followed her Twitter feed, was intrigued by this stream of instant feedback, and wondered if it might be perceived as a gift or a threat to an NHS Trust. I was lucky enough to have a chat with Helen about her experiences, and this post summarises our conversation: Difficult status coming up… Firstly I wondered what led to Helen choosing to make such a personal experience, which many of us would choose to keep private, so very public: Helen told me, as a regular use of Twitter it simply seemed ‘quite natural that I would carry on using Twitter’ and that she had actually made retaining her phone a condition of her admission. However, this quickly came under threat when staff attempted to confiscate it. I have previously blogged about inpatient access to smart phones and the law here. It is worth reflecting at this point how smart phones have become an essential day-to-day communication tool for many people – for Helen a text, Facebook update or tweet was infinitely preferable to a conversation on the ward payphone and an invaluable way of keeping in touch with people during a distressing period. ‘It validated me much more than my experiences on the ward’ Helen told me that initially she began tweeting her experiences out of both ‘boredom and frustration’ and to elicit the support she felt she needed and was not receiving in person from ward staff. It is telling that Helen felt she...