Australian mental health non-profit SANE has tapped Sydney Salesforce partner Mav3rik to implement Salesforce Health Cloud to a pilot program aimed to improve patient care.
Funded by the Federal Government and launched in June this year, SANE’s platform provides a cloud-based guided program of support for people with complex mental health issues.
SANE said the platform was developed in response to the 2019 Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health system, which found issues in the state’s mental health system, including lack of personalisation, high costs, long wait times and living far from services.
The non-profit chose Salesforce partner Mav3rik to design a technology solution with a focus on improving patient care and assisting practitioners.
Mav3rik co-founder Richard Enojas said, “Working on this project was really important to us, we felt a huge responsibility to deliver something which would create meaningful and impactful change.”
“We chose Mav3rik as our tech partner for both their technological expertise and for their approach to the project. We’re delighted to report that the immediate results of our digital transformation provide hope for a sector which has been in crisis for some time.” SANE chief executive Rachel Green said.
“Having partners who really support our work and do that in a way that is meaningful and linked to a shared passion for our cause is really valuable.”
SANE looks to extend the platform for use into the corporate sector to provide a peer-to-peer model of support to people affected by complex mental health issues, and address mental health in the workplace.
SANE is currently funded by the Commonwealth, but only for primary health network regions. The organisation is in the process of seeking further funding from governments, both federal and state, as well as corporate support.
“We think that the model we’re using has a lot of potential to encourage people to get back into the workforce sooner when they’ve had a psychological injury. We’re also interested in working with corporates who want to be on the leading edge of tackling stigma in their own workforces. We're interested in pushing that envelope further and making all workplaces more inclusive of people who have a much more diverse and broader range of mental health issues,” Green said.
“The road to treatment and support for people with complex mental health needs is littered with congestion, diversion and roadblocks. We know thousands of people need a support service that provides continuity and connects them to others.
“One of the big things that we're developing solutions for is the fragmentation in the mental health system. People with mental health issues commonly experience big gaps in their care.”
Green added Salesforce Health Cloud added a portal where users can build their own plan to give control over their own information and their own journey.
"They can add their plan and their family members, they can share it with their GP, their psychologist, or their community mental health team, but it's built around the person, which is actually globally very unique,” she said.
At Salesforce’s recent Dreamforce event, Green spoke about the importance of integrated care and how Salesforce technology can assist future support services. SANE claims the project is the first health cloud implementation for a mental health non-profit globally.
Built on Saleforce’s Customer 360, this digital platform connects patients with their care teams, including integrated scheduling, case management, surveys, and responsible data collection, which increases accessibility, scalability, and personalisation for patients and practitioners.
Green told CRN that “44 percent of people who are accessing SANE’s guided service either have no clinical supports in place, or if they have something, they have only a GP,” emphasising the importance of the platform providing an option to involve family members in care plans.
To increase inclusivity, SANE and Mav3rik focused on accessibility features for the interface, language, visual design and functionality, including for users with complex needs.
Since the platform's launch, SANE said that the platform has helped people from a variety of backgrounds, abilities and age groups ranging from eighteen to seventy-four. Health professionals who referred participants to the service have also reported positive outcomes such as shorter stays in hospital and stronger engagement with care teams on discharge. Participants themselves have reported feeling more confident and supported in their recovery, as well as having a renewed sense of hope.
SANE said it will continue working with Mav3rik to add new features to the platform, and roll it out to other states across Australia, based on data analytics.
On future plans for the platform, Green told CRN, “We plan to look at APIs to allow GPs to integrate their systems directly with ours, with the records being controlled by the consumer, while looking at APIs to connect with hospital networks, to deliver on that vision of integrated care.
"We're also looking at the capabilities of the platform to automate, as well as good evidence in mental health care - why your services delivered, what makes it more effective, how it saved lives, and prevented suicide. This evidence we can then deploy, using this platform, which is really unique and has huge potential to save lives.”
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