REGULATING E-MENTAL HEALTH: PROGRESS, PITFALLS AND GLOBAL LESSONS

CPDP 2023 - DAY 2
AREA 42 GRAND - SESSION 3 (11:45)
Organised by IEEE Standards Association (US)
Moderator: Maria Palombini, IEEE Standards Association (US)
Speakers: Becky Inkster, WYSA (UK); Christopher Boyd-Skinner,
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (AU);
Maureen Abbott, Manager, Access to Quality Mental Health Services, Mental Health Commission of Canada (CA); Elisabeth Steindl,
University of Vienna (AT)
Exponential growth in e-Mental Health technologies offers great
promise for mental health treatment, crisis and addiction support, suicide prevention and building mental resilience. Conversely, the sensitivity of health information collected presents ethical, data protection
and privacy challenges, with sector regulation remaining unclear. Jurisdictions including Australia and Canada have developed novel e-Mental Health standards and application assessment frameworks that may
point the way to safer, more culturally equitable, evidence-informed
innovation. Is the diverse e-Mental Health Industry, including AI-enabled technologies, ready to embrace better data governance? What
are the growing efforts to digitise public mental health services? Are
existing regulatory instruments swift enough to improve protections
for vulnerable citizens? This exploratory panel presents an inter-jurisdictional examination on data protection and privacy challenges in
e-Mental Health, aiming to share global lessons on approaches to safety, quality and improved protection of citizens’ sensitive data.
• What guarantees can standards, accreditation and assessment frameworks provide to support safer delivery of digital mental health
products?
• What are the challenges and barriers with hard and soft regulatory
models?
• Is over-regulation a barrier for innovation and what engagement
strategies are required to bring Industry onboard?
• What legal instruments do we have to respond to these challenges