Rethinking IPMHA service delivery using digital technology
Development of an adjunctive digital tool to support the delivery of focused acceptance and commitment therapy in New Zealand primary care
Category: Mental Wellbeing Innovation
Target audience: Practitioners and clients of the Integrated Primary Mental Health and Addictions (IPMHA) service-delivery model
Research innovator: Vincent Allen
The project
Vincent and his team selected one of the most scalable practitioner-delivered primary care service-delivery models - the Integrated Primary Mental Health and Addictions (IPMHA) model - to see how the scalability and effectiveness of the model could be improved through the application of digital technology.
The team developed a bespoke practitioner-focused software platform designed to maximise model scalability by addressing common IPMHA service-delivery problems and supporting both clients and patients with ongoing post-session self-management.
The purpose of this work was to create a tool that both eases the workload of frontline practitioners and creates a more efficient and scalable integrated primary mental health model for New Zealand. By doing so, they aim to directly benefit the many New Zealanders who currently struggle to access the care they need.
Project Background
About 10 years ago while studying to become a clinical psychologist, Vincent began to see the glaring gaps in Aotearoa’s mental health system.
He recognised that there are far more people suffering from mental distress than there are therapists to help them, and if we continue to try and provide services to people using the same non-scalable treatment models that have been used for the past fifty years or so, things are not going to get better. There will never be enough therapists to address the ever-increasing service-demand, so there is an urgent need to find a more scalable approach.
With this in mind, Vincent decided to shift back into academia to try and develop a more scalable treatment model. His current research focuses on the use of technology to improve the scalability of mental health services.
When this project began, the team had a rough idea of what they wanted to achieve: develop a scalable digital delivery system for Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy within the IPMHA model. The primary purpose was to find more scalable ways to directly support patient engagement with therapeutic mechanisms of change post-session.
One of Vincent’s team’s first studies involved engaging directly with IPMHA practitioners to find out whether there was a need for such a tool, and if so, how it should function. Through a series of interviews, it became very apparent that the IPMHA practitioners' interest in the proposed digital tool revolved around how it might solve some of the rather serious service-delivery problems that they were facing. This necessitated a pivot from a primarily client focused tool to one that directly supports practitioners, with client support features built in.
After extensive user-needs research with IPMHA practitioners to explore the best way to apply technology to this treatment model, a bespoke practitioner-focused software platform was developed, designed to maximise model scalability by addressing common IPMHA service-delivery problems.
Ember Innovations research funding impact
Receiving an innovation grant back in 2022 changed a lot for Vincent and his team. Knowing that other public health stakeholders saw value in what they were trying to achieve gave them the confidence to move ahead and attempt to build a clinically implementable digital solution that could be integrated within the complexity of the New Zealand public health system.
Research grant benefits
Digital mental health research is difficult to do well. One of the biggest barriers to doing this kind of research is the complexity of designing engaging and effective digital products. It’s not as simple as just digitising a therapy model. Building an effective and engaging digital tool requires a great deal of user-centred research to gain an in-depth understanding of user needs. This often results in significant scope creep which can be hard to account for with the rather limited research budgets typically available to early career researchers.
Securing early funding through the Ember Innovation grant gave Vincent’s team the freedom to do a lot of blue-sky ideation on how they might address the problems faced by IPMHA practitioners with a digital solution. They had the security of knowing they could afford to build high quality software prototypes to test and refine ideas without having to ‘get it right’ the first time.
This flexibility was particularly important in the early stages of user-needs research as the software requirements changed so much. Initially they expected to create a fairly simple therapy support tool to enable clients to engage with Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy without the need for a practitioner. Changing requirements introduced significant added complexity to the software, such as interoperability with clinic Patient Management Software and Te Whatu Ora data reporting systems.
Having funding available to continue to iterate and refine the software MVP allowed the team to think big, and to develop a prototype that could be safely implemented into existing public health systems and processes.
Findings, insights and outcomes
People typically only think of digital mental health tools as a pathway for helping people to engage with therapy. The tools are not usually seen as practitioner-focused, so the discovery that these practitioners saw potential for digital technology to directly support them with their service-delivery problems was surprising. The software MVP now includes an interlinked practitioner and client interface to address the scalability problem from both sides, which is not something that was initially anticipated.
Seeing that there was an appetite in New Zealand for social impact research and innovation, the team became interested in the business development aspects of applied research. This kickstarted an entrepreneurial journey which involved developing a business case around this proposed public health software tool. Vincent and his team entered the Velocity 100k Challenge at the University of Auckland and won the overall runner-up spot, and were invited to take part in the VentureLab startup incubator. Now, they have a social enterprise company called Lighthouse Healthtech that was created to continue development of this research and get the software package into the hands of the people who need it.
Seeing that there was an appetite in New Zealand for social impact research and innovation, the team became interested in the business development aspects of applied research. This kickstarted an entrepreneurial journey which involved developing a business case around this proposed public health software tool. Vincent and his team entered the Velocity 100k Challenge at the University of Auckland and won the overall runner-up spot, and were invited to take part in the VentureLab startup incubator. Now, they have a social enterprise company called Lighthouse Healthtech that was created to continue development of this research and get the software package into the hands of the people who need it.
The team are currently developing a clinically implementable version of the software. Once integrated into the public health system after a successful clinical trial, it will directly benefit IPMHA practitioners, primary health organizations, and other primary care providers seeking support for mental health service delivery. Ultimately, they are confident that this will benefit many New Zealanders who are unable to access care under existing service-delivery models.
Contribution
to the field of innovation
This project has contributed to innovation on two main fronts:
the conceptual approach to solving the problem of scalability in mental health
the practical pathway created to ensure the research has a tangible community impact.
The primary innovation lies in shifting the focus of digital mental health tools from being solely client-facing to being practitioner-centric. At the beginning, the team envisioned a typical therapy support tool for patients. However, user-needs research with IPMHA practitioners revealed that the most significant barrier to scalability wasn't a lack of patient resources, but the service-delivery burdens placed on the practitioners themselves.
This led to a pivot to develop a bespoke, interlinked software platform that supports both the practitioner's workflow and the client's therapeutic journey. This dual-focus is a novel approach in the digital mental health space, as it addresses the systemic bottlenecks that truly limit scalability, rather than just digitising therapy content.
The most significant contribution to the community has been taking this research beyond the University of Auckland and creating a viable pathway for real-world implementation. The confidence gained from early support, including the Ember Innovations grant, encouraged the team to pursue an entrepreneurial path.
This journey culminated in the formation of a social enterprise, Lighthouse Healthtech, which is dedicated to getting the software fully developed, trialled, and integrated into the New Zealand public health system.
Related publications and resources
Allen, V., Lottridge, D., & Stasiak, K. (2026). Evaluating a digital mental health tool for implementation into New Zealand’s Integrated Primary Mental Health and Addictions service: Usability study. JMIR Human Factors, 13(1), e84412. https://doi.org/10.2196/84412
Allen, V., Lottridge, D., Merry, S., & Stasiak, K. (2024). Building a digital tool to support focused acceptance and commitment therapy practitioners in New Zealand primary care: A qualitative exploration of user needs to guide software feature development. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 32, 100762. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2024.100762