Te Waka O Digital Mental Health & Addiction Tool released
The Digital Mental Health and Addiction Tool (DMHAT) is Aotearoa New Zealand’s assessment framework to guide anyone involved in the design, development, and use of e-mental health tools and services. This framework will help developers and vendors meet baseline standards, to deliver safe, trusted, and effective digital mental health and wellbeing solutions for individuals, whānau (family), and communities across Aotearoa New Zealand.
Mental health apps and digital tools are defined as digitally delivered products that are aimed at supporting mental health in some way, eg, mobile apps and online programmes. This can include wellness-orientated apps if there is a clear health-related focus and benefit.
The Framework
The assessment framework has two components. The first is an introductory guide to DMHAT that sets out the baseline standards expected of digital mental health tools for users in Aotearoa New Zealand. The second component is a self-assessment tool for designers and developers of digital mental health apps and tools, available either as an online tool or a downloadable document.
Designers and developers will be guided through what it takes to meet acceptable quality standards for New Zealanders, and the health professionals who support them. In due course, it is hoped a third component will be developed that will offer a formal accreditation pathway.
Hi Sally, I reached out to a colleague in the Mental Health & Addictions team, he replied with the following info:
The eMHIC hosted DMHAT collaboration site has been live since 11th November, as launched at the eMHIC conference. Users can sign-up on the site to receive the DMHAT User Manual as a download. This is more detailed than the publicly available guide that doesn’t require registration to download.
The process of using the DMHAT is in beta release, and this reflects that further collaboration is expected to improve the framework through use.
MHA Directorate has yet to fund resources in Health Navigator to support the beta release and support the collaborative to improve DMHAT through applied use. Until there is confirmed funding, we (eMHIC, Health Navigator, MoH) are not creating any press releases. Therefore currently the eMHIC / DMHAT collaboration site is unsupported other than the technology platform (including registration process) and hosted documents.
eMHIC is led by Professor Anil Thapliyal at AUT if you wanted to reach out.