The 2022 recipient of the Implementation Leadership Award for Sweden is Kristofer Vernmark. 

Our award recipient is a truly remarkable guy – a combination of a psychologist and Dr. Phil. You name it in eMental Health, Kristofer will have been involved in some way in Sweden. His interest in internet-based mental healthcare and treatment within the Swedish healthcare system goes back over 15 years.

So much is his interest in this domain – and the value of collaboration and knowledge mobilisation – that in 2018 he founded the Network for Digital Psychologists, a membership network with almost 400 psychologists that also are members of the Swedish Psychological Association, and a social network with over 1500 psychologists.

To further advance this domain, he has also published several scientific articles and books dealing with Internet-based CBT for mental illness and how to implement it in healthcare. The books are aimed to both students and to managers and employees in health and healthcare.

His contributions to the development of eMental Health in Sweden has been extensive and varied:

• He has been an instrumental in developing internet-based programs that are used by the entire healthcare system in Sweden. The regions who have taken up his programs are very well supported by our recipient, through training and implementation support
• In Sweden, there is a technical platform that the 21 regions use to offer internet-based treatments for both adults and children to support anxiety, depression and sleep difficulties. Kristoffer was instrumental in the initial development of the service.  Today, 12 out of 21 regions use programs developed by Psykologpartner for both adults and children to support anxiety, depression and sleep difficulties.  Developing a program requires knowledge. All the more persistence is required to really make such programs reach all patients with the need and to make these well implemented Kristofer has been very important there.
• He has a special ability to train and provide support in the implementation of I-CBT He is a very skilled lecturer and has good knowledge of both technical conditions, implementation and specific programs for mental health.

This year’s worthy recipient for Sweden is a true leader with unwavering dedication to the advancement of digital mental health.

Congratulations Kristofer!