CO-CREATION: AN APPROACH TO DEVELOPING DIGITALIZED MENTAL HEALTHCARE

Abstract

Mental health problems are increasing worldwide and a need for the development of digital mental health services has been noticed globally. A variety of novel technologies are currently being introduced in mental health services. The development process of health services should be done in collaboration with end-users and companies: it is crucial to develop health services with end-users and companies, because the resources of public healthcare are limited and the services are complex. A cocreation is a prominent facilitator of digital transformation, and it increases acceptability and user-friendliness. Especially, there are concrete benefits of co-creation models for stakeholders when developing needs-based products and services for healthcare. The aim of this article is to introduce the use of the co-creation process throughout the development of dynamic treatment monitoring solutions for mental health issues, and to present the preliminary results of a pilot test. Based on the results of the pilot test, the co-creation process improved the solution, and healthcare professionals were willing to use it. The solution increased the sensibleness of their work. In addition, digitalization enabled individual follow-up between care visits. Results tentatively point towards the usefulness and benefits of a data-driven monitoring system for mental health treatment.