Exciting news 🔊: We've integrated a new app with the Tirohia research platform—Life Buoy 🛟. Life Buoy was developed by researchers at the Black Dog Institute in Australia to help young people manage suicidal thoughts. You can read more about its development and research to date here. Through this integration, researchers using the Tirohia platform can establish evidence of the app's benefit on mental wellbeing. We're excited to support an upcoming trial involving Life Buoy and several other mobile apps across NZ and Australia, led by Associate Professor Sarah Hetrik at the University of Auckland.
At Kekeno, we are responsible for the development and maintenance of the Tirohia research platform. One of the enjoyable aspects of this work is the opportunity to collaborate with developers from other organisations. It was great to work with Achref Marzouki and the team at PALO IT on this technical integration 🙏.
If you're interested in conducting your own research or have any questions about Tirohia, please email us at enquire@kekeno.tech.
We're chuffed to share a new addition to our suite of tools - Kekeno Surveys! We've meticulously crafted a survey platform that combines ease of use with a powerful feature set to support your data collection experience.
User-Friendly Interface: Navigate with Ease
Whether you're a surveying novice or a seasoned pro, Kekeno Surveys intuitive interface ensures a seamless survey creation process. Create surveys effortlessly, and switch between light and dark modes for enhanced comfort and productivity.Effortless Tailoring: Your Surveys, Your Way
Tailor surveys to perfection with Kekeno Surveys. Customise each aspect, from question types (multiple choice, single choice, sliders, or free text) to adding images, titles, and descriptions.Health and
Research: Access Evidence-Based Health and Research Surveys
Use a repository of evidence-based surveys commonly used in healthcare and research without having to set up or configure your own.
Real-Time Analytics: Stay Informed, Act Instantly
Make data-driven decisions with our real-time analytics feature. Gain an instant, live view of survey responses, whether you're tracking health assessments, research evaluations, customer feedback, conducting market research, or collecting employee opinions.
Cross-Platform Compatibility: Reach Everyone, Everywhere
Ensure maximum participation with Kekeno Surveys cross-platform compatibility. Whether on smartphones, tablets, desktop computers, or any other device, our platform delivers a consistent and user-friendly experience.
Seamless Integration: Fit Into Your Tech Ecosystem
Elevate your surveying experience by seamlessly integrating Kekeno Surveys with your existing tools and platforms. Streamline your workflow and gather valuable data effortlessly, whether you use CRMs, marketing automation tools, or other business applications.Try Kekeno Surveys Today and Transform Your Data Gathering Experience!We can't wait for you to experience the future of surveying with Kekeno Surveys.Thank you for being part of the Kekeno journey! 🦭
Mental health is a critical aspect of overall well-being, especially for young individuals who are navigating the challenges of adolescence and early adulthood. YouthCHAT, a groundbreaking mental health screening tool has emerged in New Zealand, recognizing the importance of early intervention and support.
YouthCHAT is a specialized version of the eCHAT tool developed in New Zealand. This adaptation caters specifically to young individuals, providing a comprehensive assessment of their mental health, lifestyle, and general well-being. By utilizing YouthCHAT, clinicians can identify a range of concerns that young people may face, such as mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, difficulty with anger control, and life stressors. It also addresses crucial lifestyle factors, including smoking, vaping, drinking, recreational drug use, gambling, gaming, exposure to abuse, and physical inactivity. Additionally, YouthCHAT explores other significant aspects of youth's lives, such as behavior/conduct, sexual identity, sexual health, and body image.
One of the notable features of the latest release of YouthCHAT is the newly designed user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) flow within the clinician's workspace and the questionnaire itself. Recognizing the importance of engaging young people during the screening process, the developers have made significant improvements to ensure a more intuitive, calming, and enjoyable experience. The user-friendly design aims to reduce anxiety and encourage honest responses, ultimately leading to more accurate assessments and appropriate interventions.
The development of YouthCHAT has been a collaborative effort, drawing upon the expertise of renowned professionals in the field.
Professor Felicity Goodyear-Smith and Doctor Hiran Thabrew have played important roles, working alongside a dedicated team at the Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences at The University of Auckland. Their collective efforts, along with the contributions of Professor Jim Warren and Doctor Rhiannon Martel, have helped to refine YouthCHAT into the powerful tool it is today.
Since its initial development for research purposes in 2015, YouthCHAT has experienced remarkable growth and adoption. Currently, it is used in over 100 clinics and schools throughout New Zealand, with organizations such as Te Whatu Ora, ProCare, Healthwest, Pinnacle Healthcare, and the prestigious Starship Children's Hospital incorporating it into their practices.
The release of YouthCHAT represents a significant advancement in mental health screening for young individuals. By leveraging technology and innovative design, it bridges the gap between clinicians and youth, ensuring early identification of concerns and providing targeted support. With its focus on holistic well-being, YouthCHAT has the potential to transform the lives of countless young individuals by enabling timely interventions and empowering them to take charge of their mental health.
YouthCHAT is a game-changer in the field of mental health screening, providing a tailored and comprehensive approach to address the specific needs of young people. By simplifying the process, enhancing engagement, and expanding its reach, this innovative tool paves the way for early intervention and support, ultimately fostering healthier and happier youth.
As YouthCHAT continues to make a positive impact, we can envision a future where mental health screening becomes a seamless part of every young person's healthcare journey, leading to improved well-being and brighter futures.
Hi, this is Chester. Welcome 🫶. Thanks for your interest in this post, please read on. Briefly about me in a sentence, I am a former medical doctor turned software engineer and am the founder of Kekeno Tech - this small New Zealand-based business focused on software development in the area of healthcare and related research.
This is the first post in a series focused on people, activities and current topics that are pertinent to the work that Kekeno is doing. In particular, we will be exploring current state issues related to artificial intelligence and health IT in general in Aotearoa; as well as some fun technical, pure engineering topics. Please subscribe to our mailing list if you’re interested to stay updated.
To date, I haven’t been someone with a natural inclination for blogging, or putting myself out there on social media. We’re faced with an epidemic of click bait, reading headlines, subtitles and introduction paragraphs for our news; as our lives continue to move more into the digital space I suspect and fear this trend will only continue. For those of us who share this concern, what can we each do on a personal level to combat this? I have found spending more time reading longer articles, investigative journalism and books helps. And it is what is happening in the domain of my work and technical expertise that has inspired me to write1.
My interests lie in health IT, and increasingly, AI applied to health. I have a network of friends, colleagues and collaborators with great skill and intelligence in the areas of software/computer science including AI, and clinical medicine. Yet it remains confronting how siloed we still remain across those domains of expertise, even now as AI (GenerativeAI, ChatGPT for example) storms ahead. In this post I won't get into the political and regulatory aspects of AI.
I recently presented on AI and machine learning to a group of students in year 3, MBChB University of Auckland. It was a great session with really neat engagement and discussion. About a week before that I caught up with two of my close friends (now specialists in Infectious Diseases and Intensive Care Medicine) from my own med school class. This week I had a meeting with some collaborators on current and upcoming research around a diagnostic feedback app for use in secondary and tertiary care. In all of these cases I was confronted with the same thought - there are many and complicated positive and negative aspects of AI applied to health (and of course more broadly beyond health) that we are not proactively working enough in Aotearoa and even the those of us who have hybrid expertise in this area are going to have to work hard to realise the benefits and to manage the risks. We shouldn’t be comfortable letting AI (in particular large language model-related work) proceed full speed ahead, driven by commercial interests and big tech. Clinicians/clinical researchers should be at the forefront of this work in terms of implementation, safety and risk management.
It is heartening to see some signs of life here now. https://www.nejm.org/ai-in-medicine.
Those threads will be returned to in a subsequent post. I would like to finish introducing my personal journey to how I ended up in this vocational territory.
In 2015 I was working as a medical doctor (senior registrar in Respiratory Medicine) at Middlemore Hospital. I had no idea how computers worked, no expertise in programming and had no significant interest in artificial intelligence. My attention at the time was on clinical work, reading medical journals, areas like interstitial lung diseases, improving my procedure skills in bronchoscopy, thoracoscopy and EBU, reporting cardiopulmonary exercise tests, etc. I really enjoyed my work and 🫶 Middlemore Hospital.
In early 2016 I had some type of state change. I was becoming increasingly sensitised to clinician bias, observing frequent instances where this led to diagnostic or treatment errors and potential or definite patient harm. A few things to emphasise here - this is a general healthcare issue, not hospital specific, I have seen it across all hospitals I have worked at in NZ; we are not perfect, clinicians on the whole do a fantastic job and I have enormous admiration for my medical colleagues. However, despite this awareness, that was part of the inception of the idea in my mind - perhaps a computer program or AI would help protect against clinician bias. Little did I know that such a thought was not new and lots of work dating back even into that 80's had looked into that (see "Decision Support Systems")2.
Around that same time I had the increasing desire to understand computers and learn to program. I watched a few movies where the protagonist (usually a benevolent hacker) was at a linux terminal powering the computer to his/her own will, doing something that seemed almost magical. I started to wonder how the future would look in 10 (it's almost been 10 at the time of writing....💀), 15+ years from now. I felt that I would be at a disadvantage and relatively disempowered if I didn't understand computers in this coming future context.
I continued my clinical work, had a few more run-of-the-mill disillusioning experiences (clinicians among us all know the various shapes and sizes these come in) and so after one such experience in particular I made a bold decision to stop full time clinical work and go back to university to study computer science - specifically, I quit. This was pretty bold and I think most of my colleagues thought "he'll be back". I was 29 at the time. A couple of weeks after making this decision I sat in a university mathematics tutorial doing differential equations - something I hadn't done for a good decade or more!
Over the ensuing 2.5 years, I completed my BSc in computer science ✔ ️. For the first ~ 2 years of the degree I worked part time as a locum medical doctor doing ~ 30 hours per week with the full time university program. Year 3 of the degree was more challenging and I wouldn't have been able to (in a non-healthy way) do well in the courses as well as satisfactorily complete my medical CME. So (sadly!) I decided not to renew my annual practising certificate.
I then went on to complete the Honours year, taking papers in AI, machine learning, advanced algorithmics among others. I began to focus on conversational AI, including for my dissertation. On a whim one night I created a chatbot using generative AI (recurrent neural network model training on ~ 5 million size Reddit data set) - it was pretty good though limited compared to current LLMs (transformer based models). I worked part time with the HABITs (now called Tirohia) research team as a software engineer and as a Research Fellow at the University of Auckland. I had come a fair way since 2016; quite a bit further in fact than I had intended to go but was loving working in computer science. I felt cognitively and creatively stimulated and empowered. I had achieved what I wanted to achieve but had sacrificed active clinical work - which I do miss (like an ex partner who you still love and care for but have moved on from!).
The academic environment is fantastic for pure research but not optimal for agile software development. I experienced some limitations in the pace and culture of building software in that environment, and together with some exciting private project opportunities I began to take on private work. This was something which happened organically.
Kekeno was incorporated in 2021. I was (and am) lucky to be in contact with other talented software engineers and designers. I saw that there was this void where clinicians and researchers had great ideas for projects but no providers/collaborators of the right size, agility, expertise to cover the software development side. And so we got started. We’ve so far been involved in some really neat, inspired projects and continue to branch into more and exciting new projects and research.
Stay tuned for the next post, we’ll be diving into interesting and pertinent topics in this space.
Please send any feedback to chester@kekeno.tech
Footnotes, References and Resources
1. Written without the use of GenerativeAI 2. These systems and the early (early AI general approach) using symbolic representation, a knowledge base and logic rules are interesting in their own right and we will for interest give attention to this in the future.
We are thrilled to introduce Tirohia, a cutting-edge research platform and suite of digital tools designed to revolutionize the field of youth mental health research. Developed by a team of dedicated researchers including Karolina Stasis, Tania Cargo, Sally Merry, Sarah Hopkins, Sarah Herrick, Jim Warren, and Chester Holt-Quick, Tirohia aims to improve the mental health and well-being of young people, particularly rangatahi.
At the core of Tirohia is an intuitive interface that empowers researchers to create customized surveys and trials, gathering specific feedback on digital interventions and games. This real-time tracking of participant engagement provides valuable data-driven insights, enabling evidence-based approaches to promoting mental health interventions.
One of the key strengths of Tirohia is its emphasis on collaboration between researchers and organizations. By fostering these partnerships, the platform seeks to create meaningful change in the lives of young individuals. Thanks to the support of key funders like A Better Start, and MBIE, Tirohia is now available for general use.
We believe that Tirohia will play a pivotal role in advancing the understanding and effectiveness of digital interventions for youth mental health. With this powerful platform, we can collectively pave the way for a brighter and healthier future for the young generation. Together, we can embrace evidence-based practices and unlock the potential to positively transform the mental well-being of our youth.
https://www.tirohia.co.nz
https://www.abetterstart.nz
https://www.mbie.govt.nz
The New Zealand Herald recently published an article about Headstrong, titled "Mana-enhancing app supporting mental health and wellbeing of rangatahi."
The Headstrong app, launched in 2022, is the result of collaboration between researchers at the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau and experts in digital innovation for youth mental health from the Department of Psychological Medicine. It draws on Māori, Pacific, and Western perspectives on science and utilizes Te Whare Tapa Whā, a holistic wellbeing model, as its core foundation.
One of the highlights of the Headstrong app is the newly launched "Kia Haumanu" course, which utilizes mātauranga Māori, cognitive behavioral therapy, and positive psychology strategies to help young people manage stress, deal with negative thoughts, and resolve conflicts. This course is an exciting blend of pūrākau, waiata, haka, and whakataukī from seven different rohe, reconnecting rangatahi to their Māoritanga.
What sets Kia Haumanu apart is its unique approach to engaging with young people. Headstrong is the first bilingual app, available in both te reo Māori and te reo Pākehā, with a virtual kaiāwhina, or chatbot guide. This guide provides a safe and confidential space for rangatahi to confide in without fear of social consequences, allowing them to relate to someone who understands their culture and the challenges they face as teenagers.
At Kekeno, we are incredibly proud to be a part of this transformative initiative that combines digital innovation with the wisdom of mātauranga Māori to support the mental wellbeing of rangatahi. We believe that the Kia Haumanu course will empower young people to revitalize and rebalance their hauora through culturally validating techniques. This is a significant step towards providing accessible and effective mental health support to rangatahi across New Zealand.
We commend the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, the Department of Psychological Medicine, and all the rangatahi who contributed to the development of Kia Haumanu. Together, we are paving the way for a brighter and healthier future for our young generation.
Please feel free to read the full article in The New Zealand Herald to learn more about the inspiring work being done to enhance the mental health and wellbeing of rangatahi in Aotearoa.
