Hopeful about e-health in psychiatry
The need for psychiatric services for young people is growing, and video care can help. 50 people attended the eCAP conference in Tromsø, and shared important knowledge.
The eCAP project has run since 2015. eCAP stands for E-health Services for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and collaborating countries are Scotland, Sweden, Finland and Norway.
To sum up important experiences and research, an open seminar was held in Tromsø on September 12, and it was hosted by the Norwegian Centre for E-health Research. All the project partners held presentations. There was also a talk by eMeistring in Helse Bergen, and Petter Bae Brandtzæg spoke about chatbots.
Listen to the users
Ingrid Bruun from Mental Health Youth talked about the user perspective.
- Our members are incredible resources. They have so much to share, and give. It is very important to use the users! We see that you in the health system are trying, but it is not working all the time, Bruun reminded everyone.
Try out and share
Minna Pölkki, psychologist at Kuopio University Hospital in Finland (Department of Child Psychiatry) held a presentation together with her Finnish colleagues.
- I think this project has been very good. We need to try out things, to be able to invent new models for care and interaction. This seminar helps to bring all the findings from the countries together, says Minna Pölkki.
People who attended were pleased to get more insight.
- We see the potential for more cooperation, within our organisation but also between institutions. Innovation, quality improvement and best practice should be more closely linked, says Grete Åsvang, who works with quality and development at the University Hospital of North Norway.
- In our daily work, we see the need for cooperation across many fields. Skype and video should definitely be used more, says her colleague Mette Fredheim.
Project Manager for eCAP, Elin Breivik from the Norwegian Centre for E-health Research, is hopeful about the future.
- We believe this project has contributed to document and share the innovation and try-outs that take place in health services, she says.
- Slowly but surely, the health care providers will use more technology, like video. Many caregivers have started. Tech innovation is changing our world rapidly, and patients and health professionals must also benefit from it.
The project is funded by The Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme and is now coming to an end.