This spring, Bergen municipality, in collaboration with Youwell, will start the development of an app for young people with anxiety. During last year, they gathered a lot of insight and feedback both from young people in general and from young people with anxiety problems.
Over the next few weeks, work will get underway in full to produce content for the platform, while privacy, user testing and universal design will have a major focus in the project.
We had a chat with the project manager in Bergen municipality, Ragnhild Thornam, about the project and why they wanted to be part of Forhelse.
What was their motivation to join the centre?
We joined the center to gain experience in developing and adopting digital health services. The Agency for Children and Families attaches great importance to knowledge-based work. It therefore appealed very much to us to be able to develop a digital service that is being researched. We also think it seemed exciting and instructive to collaborate with a business operator who has experience in creating digital interventions.
What is your role/contribution in the work package you participate in?
The project digital anxiety treatment for young people is part of two work packages - effect studies and implementation. In addition to leading the project, we contribute heavily to developing content, as well as testing the intervention on our users.
Read more about work package 1 here and work package 4 here.
What challenges do you see in the project?
Our project has young people aged 13-16 as the target group. It is an exciting challenge to create something that is both appealing and useful to the target group. We have therefore placed great emphasis on gaining insight into the target group. Going forward, we will prioritize testing the target group. Other challenges relate to privacy and login. It is also a challenge to get the timelines to harmonize when we are three different actors working together.
Bergen municipality will collaborate with business partner Youwell, which is responsible for developing the platform on which the digital program will be located. In addition, DigiHub will help produce and develop the content for the programme.
Project manager, Ragnhild Thornam, in Bergen municipality
Why is digitization important in the healthcare sector?
"In Bergen municipality, we learn that some young people do not want to use services that require physical attendance. Therefore, it is important to create digital alternatives so that we reach more people."
When we expand the range of measures, we hope to be able to help more people at an early stage. Of course, we also hope that digitization helps us use our resources smartly and efficiently.
What do you want to achieve during the 8 years that the center will exist?
Our desire is to gain experience in creating and using digital alternatives to today's services. We hope that the knowledge we gain through collaboration in the center can be used in other development work.
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