The COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed care delivery so that more and more mental health care, particularly for mild and moderate conditions such as anxiety and depression, is provided virtually. This includes phone calls and video visits. Most Canadians get most of their mental health care from primary care providers (usually their family doctor). Despite the rapid proliferation of virtual care, there are no existing Canadian national standards that provide a benchmark for when and how to provide virtual care for mild-moderate mental
illnesses.

These benchmarks are essential to improving patient and provider experiences, reducing costs, and supporting population health, known as the Quadruple Aim. Working with our national team of stakeholders including patients, caregivers, clinicians, researchers and administrators from Canada (as well as international experts) over one year we will complete an ambitious but feasible project to develop Canadian standards for virtual delivery of mental health services for common mental illnesses in primary care.

We will conduct a rapid review of international resources to identify best practices in countries with similar health systems; gather stakeholder input on the search to identify what is most important/relevant to the Canadian context; use evidence review and stakeholder input to generate potential standards for Canadian jurisdictions; and conduct a Delphi consensus process with stakeholders to assess their feasibility and relevance. We will recruit diverse stakeholders from across the country from varied settings to ensure the feasibility and generalizability of the developed standards to contexts across Canada.

If you have any questions, please contact the principal investigator (Braden O’Neill) at braden.oneill@unityhealth.to.