Mental health IT ‘at best ok’ – survey

Mental health IT systems are at best “ok” according to a survey of system usability carried out by the National Mental Health Informatics Network and presented at EHI Live 2013.

With more than 1,000 responses covering 22 systems in use in 54 trusts, the Great Big Mental Health System Survey is thought to be the first of its kind in England. 

It was carried out this year by network chairman Dr Joe McDonald and Darren McKenna, informatics director at Northumberland, Tyne and Wear Mental Health NHS Trust.

The two declined to name and shame system providers, saying the data was too prone to error and that the survey, which used to generate a system usability or SUS score, may have been open to “gaming”.

Dr McDonald said: “We had one or two interesting results and wonder whether system suppliers made themselves look good.”

However, the overall survey showed some key themes – the main one being variability.

Some users found the system more usable than others. Social workers and administrative staff reported the best usability, and medics the least. This was true across and between trusts.

There was also variability in how different trusts rated the same system. McKenna said: “This tells us something about how the system has been implemented and supported.”

User comments – which ran to 56 pages – indicated that the main issues were slow access to records and the length of time it takes to enter data.

McKenna said: “Overall the survey shows that our current choices of system are at best OK and I personally do not think that’s good enough.

“Systems work better for some users than they do for others and that reflects the one size fits all nature of mental health systems.

"The view is the same whether you are a medic or in admin. If you are seeing a patient in the community you want something quick on a smartphone and most systems do not offer that.”

He acknowledged that the survey had not differentiated between different versions of the same system but said: “Can you take a poor system and make it work well?

"Or can you implement support to make a good system act poorly? The challenge is what would happen if we had a system that worked well and was implemented well?”

He argued that informatics directors needed to understand more about which implementation methodologies work. “There are currently lots of methodologies but we do not know what good looks like,” he said.

Dr McDonald added that the network will be taking these key messages to system suppliers. He said: “There is a gap in the market here for a really good system implemented really well.”