Mental health company Oh My Mood are developing their blended care pathways programme for the UK market, with support from the Health Innovation Exchange (HIE) project.
Oh My Mood, who this year chose Liverpool as its UK base, work with clinicians, universities to make evidence-based blended care pathways available to mental health therapists and service users in order to make mental health support more effective and accessible.
Their modular approach to mental health care means that the programme can be tailored and adapted to each individual service user. By developing digital solutions to support face-to-face therapies their blended care approach aims to make mental health therapy more efficient thereby easing the strain on health practitioners.
HIE partner Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) is working with Oh My Mood by introducing them to the Improving Access to the Psychological Therapies (IAPT) team who provide evidence-based psychological therapies to people with mental health problems. IAPT are working with Oh My Mood on evaluating and assessing their innovative care pathways for the UK market.
LJMU is also linking their postgraduate students with Oh My Mood to help run a series of seminars on mental health across the City Region. Already a success in other cities including Maastricht, the Netherlands, Psychology Unwrapped are scientifically based events around mental health care topics designed to remove the stigma around mental health by creating awareness and openness to talk about these issues.
Jaime Essed, founder and CEO of Oh My Mood, said:
“Blended care, where traditional therapies and the latest eHealth methods are seamlessly integrated in mental health care pathways, is a relatively new concept. After only using evidence-based methodologies during the development phase, we were very excited to be introduced to LJMU through the Health Innovation Exchange programme. With the IAPT team as our research partner, we will set out to rigorously evaluate, assess and provide evidence that our blended care pathways provide high-quality, affordable and future-proof mental health care that benefit service users worldwide.”
Grahame Smith, Reader in Mental Health at Liverpool John Moores University, said:
“Oh My Mood is driving innovation in the mental healthcare sector and I am thrilled that the Health Innovation Exchange project has been able to offer support and close collaborations with academia to help them further develop their programmes.”
Looking ahead, Oh My Mood will be looking to implement their blended care pathways with a number of UK mental health trusts and also have plans to make their solutions available in other European markets.
Health Innovation Exchange partners involved are: Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group, Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership. Innovation Agency, Alder Hey NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool John Moores University, Mersey Care NHS Trust and Aimes Grid Services.