Bringing digital tools into your work with patients
Question
What must clinicians understand when integrating digital tech into practice?
Answer
Start small, iterate, and build. One of the game-changing lessons I’ve learned as an academic clinical psychologist who researches apps for mental health is to embrace starting small when it comes to introducing digital interventions in your practice. As clinical psychologists, our main superpower is helping people change their behavior. Digital interventions such as mobile apps, digital therapeutics, and wearable tech can help us do that, because they can offer people support outside of therapy sessions in the moments of need that happen throughout their daily lives.
Easing into the use of digital interventions can help clinicians pinpoint how best to change behavior with a digital tool and build from there.
Implementation science tells us that one of the key strategies to integrating something new into our work is to do a “small test of change,” and try something with a few people before rolling it out to everyone. Doing so gives you the chance to see how the intervention works, learn where there may be opportunities to improve, and make changes. For digital interventions, there are multiple aspects you can test in advance: the technology, its clinical delivery, and how it is offered to patients and used in your practice.
In fact, starting small and building on is what guides me in intervention design. I zoom in on the main behavior I’m aiming to change and then design my intervention to do that using evidence-based theory and behavior change principles. Once I have a workable intervention, I start testing it with consumers so I can find out what needs to change and improve. Consumers can teach us so much about how to make our digital interventions more engaging and useful to them if we test them rigorously, safely, and appropriately. It’s OK if, early on during testing, a digital intervention does not look as sophisticated as other options in the marketplace. If testing shows it can help people change their behavior, then it’s in the right place to iterate and build from there.
Implementation science tells us that one of the key strategies to integrating something new into our work is to do a ‘small test of change,’ and try something with a few people before rolling it out to everyone.
—Andrea K. Graham, PhD, Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies
It benefits you and your patients to test in advance everything you deliver or refer patients to so that you can iterate and improve as needed. Once you feel ready, you’ll be well-positioned to offer tech more broadly to patients across your practice.
For more guidance on using tech in practice, check out APA’s Speaking of Psychology podcast on Digital therapeutics and mental health apps. Read about FDA-approved mental health digital therapeutics that can help psychologists extend care and find guidance on how to decide which AI tools are right for your practice.
https://www.apaservices.org/practice/business/technology/tech-talk/behavior-change-innovation
Courtesy: APA newsletter