Due to the promise of digital mental health, billions of dollars are being invested across academia, industry, and government to develop cutting-edge innovations and advanced analytical techniques to meet the mental health needs of the nation by increasing access to care and reaching underserved groups.
However, “if you build it, people will come”—is a flawed notion.
When was the last time you downloaded an app? Did you use it after installing it? It’s a common experience to download apps with full intention to engage, only to forget about them or never open them again.
Now, studies show that most people with mental health challenges tend to disengage from digital mental health interventions within 2 weeks—often before the intervention has a chance to have an effect. Here the challenge is to attract patients and sustain engagement long enough to make an impact on their mental health.
So how do we do that?
I ask you to consider human connection, a basic (yet important) human need, as a revolutionary form of innovation—one that has the potential to bridge the gap from patient disengagement to full participation.
By integrating authentic human connection (or potentially AI-driven, the jury is still out on this one) into digital mental health technologies, we tap into the power of reciprocal accountability. Under the recovery model of mental health, reciprocal accountability—meaning that peer supporters and patients mutually help and learn from each other—indicates autonomy, flexible expectations, shared lived experience, and bonding. All of those facilitate personal empowerment and may influence engagement in digital interventions.
Peer supporters are people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness and are hired, trained, and certified to provide Medicaid and Medicare reimbursable peer support services. Peer supporters comprise one of the fastest-growing sectors of the mental health workforce providing community-based services. Promising empirical evidence indicates the combination of people similar to oneself and tech-delivered support produces high levels of patient empowerment and engagement in mental health technology in people with mental health challenges.
While technology has the capacity to replace or minimize human involvement, integrating meaningful human interactions can serve as a powerful complement that can empirically improve patient accountability, trust, engagement or “stickiness” (i.e., do people use it), and mental health outcomes.
