The University of Sydney has announced that Innowell, the mental health and wellbeing digital platform for students and staff, will no longer be available to students on June 30.
In a recent notice, the University stated that the program’s duration “was also an opportunity to explore and test market capability for digital wellbeing platforms suitable for both staff and students.”
A University spokesperson told Honi Soit that “The platform was procured as a pilot on an initial 12-month contract, and offered on a free and voluntary basis to students in May 2022 and staff in July 2022; we agreed to extend the pilot for a further year in early 2023.”
Innowell was first introduced to USyd staff and students in 2021 following COVID-19 and the University’s commitment to improving mental health services during the height of the pandemic.
Innowell came out of Project Synergy, a $33 million project funded by the Australian government to research the impact of digital technologies on mental health in the care economy.
The start-up included shareholders like PWC (45%) as well as USyd itself (32%).In its launch, the University detailed that the program had been “designed by mental health experts, including Dr. Ian Hickie of the Brain and Mind Centre”.
Questions of transparency and disclosure of commercial interest have circulated public reaction to the tax-funded program with the Greens criticising Mark Scott and the University’s governance structure for not initially disclosing the financial interests to staff and students.
Access to Innowell is through voluntary enrolment followed by an anonymous self-assessment exercise to produce a personalised wellbeing plan. Following enrolment, staff and students receive regular emails with “questionnaires” and motivational quotes from notable figures.
The service was platformed to address suicide prevention by integrating “digital mental health interventions” through “highlighting emergency help contacts” and notifying health care professionals and services if escalation occurs. Innowell states on its website that they “ are not a crisis service”.
Questions about the service’s efficacy have circulated since its introduction. One student told Honi that the experience had “very basic questions that just reinforces what you already know” with many noting that the regular “spam” of emails felt overwhelming or excessive.
Another student told Honi that they never used the platform but “felt comfort in knowing the service exists should I need it”.
For the student and staff data collected to manufacture the personalised wellbeing plans, the University spokesperson stated, “the University has no access to individual data through the Innowell health and wellbeing portal; basic, de-identified usage data is provided only to assess levels of user engagement and trends as is standard.”
The University also referred to its existing privacy and record-keeping policies and stated “all data is managed in accordance with those policies”.
The University is still advertised as one of Innowell’s partners on their website alongside Headspace and the Canadian Mental Health Association.
As a result of the University’s Employment Assistance Program (EAP) also reaching the end of its contracted term, the spokesperson also told Honi the University has “begun work on a tender process” for digital mental health services for both staff and students following Innowell’s closure and are projected to “announce the outcome of this tender process later this year”
An evaluation of Innowell and the trial’s success under Project Synergy’s government funded initiative is not yet public.
Despite the service’s closure, the University assured students that “a wide range of in-person, remote and digital wellbeing support remains available to our students and staff 24/7” including an after hours mental wellbeing support line available 24/7.