Is there a missing-middle in Australian mental health care?

Objective The term ‘missing-middle’ has been prominent in discourse relating to provision of mental health care in Australia, particularly by proponents of non-governmental youth mental health services such as headspace and related adult services. We investigate whether there is an empirical basis for use of the ‘missing-middle’ term, founded on qualitative and quantitative research. Conclusions Despite the widespread use of the term ‘missing-middle’ for advocacy in Australia, there is a lack of research characterising the epidemiological characteristics of the group. The validity of advocacy predicated on the basis of the ‘missing-middle’ care-gap should be reconsidered. Research, such as systematic service mapping and health needs assessment, is a necessary foundation for evidence-based mental healthcare policy, planning and implementation. Without such research, vital government funds may be deployed to ‘missing-middle’ programmes that may not improve Australian public health outcomes.

PollMap: a software for crop pollination mapping in agricultural landscapes

Background Ecosystem service mapping is an important tool for decision-making in landscape planning and natural resource management. Today, pollination service mapping is based on the Lonsdorf model (InVEST software) that determines the availability of nesting and floral resources for each land cover and estimates pollination according to the foraging range of the desired species. However, it is argued that the Lonsdorf model has significant limitations in estimating pollination in a landscape that can affect the results of this model. Results This paper presents a free software, named PollMap, that does not have the limitations of the Lonsdorf model. PollMap estimates the pollination service according to a modified version of the Lonsdorf model and assumes that only cells within the flight range of bees are important in the pollination mapping. This software is produced for estimating and mapping crop pollination in agricultural landscapes. The main assumption of this software is that in the agricultural landscapes, which are dominated by forest and agriculture ecosystems, forest patches serve only as a nesting habitat for wild bees and the surrounding fields provide floral resources. Conclusion The present study provided new software for mapping crop pollination in agricultural landscapes that does not have the limitations of the Lonsdorf model. We showed that the use of the Lonsdorf model for pollination mapping requires attention to the limitations of this model, and by removing these limitations, we will need new software to obtain a reliable mapping of pollination in agricultural landscapes.

"Off-Label" use of DNS

DNS is one of the most widely abused protocols that threat actors use to hide traffic. DNS is also actively used, or rather misused, by other service providers, vendors, etc., to provide enhanced services. An in-depth examination of DNS logs revealed several very interesting legitimate use cases of the DNS protocol, apart from the usual name resolution service function. We coined the term ?Off-label? use of DNS to represent those use cases. Legitimate here simply means using DNS for non-malicious purposes other than what it was traditionally designed for, providing domain name resolution; a dictionary service mapping domain names to corresponding IP addresses. One of the main reasons DNS is used, or possibly misused, for these off-label use cases is data transfer speed and reduced overhead. These use cases can often reveal important information about the clients and software they are running and can be leveraged by network security analysts to improve their defense of the network. This research will detail some of those legitimate off-label use cases and how analysts can use them to detect malware trends in the network and much more just by analyzing an enterprise?s DNS logs.

Optimising the integration of technology-enabled solutions to enhance primary mental health care: a service mapping study

Background Despite the widely acknowledged potential for health information technologies to improve the accessibility, quality and clinical safety of mental health care, implementation of such technologies in services is frequently unsuccessful due to varying consumer, health professional, and service-level factors. The objective of this co-design study was to use process mapping (i.e. service mapping) to illustrate the current consumer journey through primary mental health services, identify barriers to and facilitators of quality mental health care, and highlight potential points at which to integrate the technology-enabled solution to optimise the provision of care based on key service performance indicators. Methods Interactive, discussion-based workshops of up to six hours were conducted with representative stakeholders from each participating service, including health professionals, service managers and administrators from Open Arms – Veterans & Families Counselling Service (Sydney), a counselling service for veterans and their families, and five headspace centres in the North Coast Primary Health Network, primary youth mental health services. Service maps were drafted and refined in real time during the workshops. Through both group discussion and the use of post-it notes, participants worked together to evaluate performance indicators (e.g. safety) at each point in the consumer journey (e.g. intake) to indicate points of impact for the technology-enabled solution, reviewing and evaluating differing opinions in order to reach consensus. Results Participants (n=84 across participating services) created service maps illustrating the current consumer journey through the respective services and highlighting barriers to and facilitators of quality mental health care. By consensus, the technology-enabled solution as facilitated by the InnoWell Platform was noted to enable the early identification of risk, reduce or eliminate lengthy intake processes, enable routine outcome monitoring to revise treatment plans in relation to consumer response, and serve as a personal data record for consumers, driving person-centred, coordinated care. Conclusions Service mapping was shown to be an effective methodology to understand the consumer’s journey through a service and served to highlight how the co-designed technology-enabled solution can optimise service pathways to improve the accessibility, quality and clinical safety of care relative to key service performance indicators, facilitating the delivery of the right care.