Recruiting Veterans Health Administration Staff for a Training and Implementation Initiative to Integrate Mental Health Apps into Clinical Care: Strategies and Lessons Learned

The Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) National Center for PTSD has developed 16 free, publicly available mobile apps to support users’ mental health. Despite their utility as self-care or supplemental treatment resources and potential to bridge gaps in care, awareness of these apps remains low among Veterans and VA staff. To reach more Veterans and increase access to these apps, a national quality improvement project was conducted to adequately train and equip VA staff to integrate apps into their practice. Participating staff were educated on the evidence supporting the apps, trained on how to share and use apps with Veterans, and guided to create an implementation plan for sustained integration of apps at their facility. Considering the novel and far-reaching nature of this initiative, multiple recruitment efforts were strategically implemented. This paper describes the strategies used to recruit VA staff to this non-mandated training and implementation initiative and the rates of success for each strategy. Staff at 32 VA facilities were contacted and 19 were recruited, representing each of VA’s 18 geographic regions. Among the most successful facilitators to staff recruitment were engaging leadership, leveraging existing relationships, and aligning project objectives with existing priorities of the healthcare system. This included highlighting the benefits of the apps themselves and how they support virtual and in-person care. The paper concludes with lessons learned for those seeking to recruit busy healthcare professionals for large-scale practice change initiatives that involve education, training, and implementation of digital health innovations.