At last week’s Behavioral Health Tech Conference, members of the Talkspace team had the opportunity to join health plans, behavioral health providers, startups, policymakers, and thought leaders in Phoenix, AZ—our first time gathering in person at a conference that had been digital until now. The topic at hand was the ever-changing landscape of behavioral health and ways to make care more accessible during this critical time of crises facing so many segments of the population.
Across the presentations, panels, and in between, the sense of urgency around this mission was palpable. Here are my 5 takeaways from panels and conversations across the conference floor:
- Digital delivery doesn’t always mean equitable access: While everyone overwhelmingly agreed that providing digital mental health services suits the schedules of many busy working people and brings treatment to some of those who may not have otherwise sought care, we must put greater emphasis on reaching populations that still don’t have equitable access. For example, in rural communities, there are far fewer mental health providers and suicide rates are nearly double those of urban communities. Remote care can solve logistical burdens, but the optimal solution isn’t simply getting a person in a rural community on the phone with a therapist in the closest city, it would be connecting them virtually with a care provider who understands where they’re coming from (literally and figuratively) and can provide informed care. Tele-mental health services such as Talkspace specialize in pairing people with therapists who understand their needs and backgrounds, but we can only provide culturally informed care if the industry as a whole supports the recruitment and retention of providers of all races, ethnicities, backgrounds, and identities, in order to connect diverse populations with a more representative care community. Our industry is still in its infancy stage of reaching historically under-served populations, and as Dr. Yavar Moghimi, AmeriHealth’s Chief Psychiatric Medical Officer, noted, digital behavioral health is not one size fits all, and we need to tailor care accordingly.
- We must unify and broaden how we measure outcomes: Anytime you assemble a group of people in digital healthcare, measuring ROI is a topic that comes up frequently. We tend to think of measurement in terms of symptom improvement, set at the clinical level and usage/utilization, but have put less focus on measuring engagement. This is an area that has been “overlooked in the digital health space,” according to Jenna Carl, chief medical officer of mental health company Big Health. Too many people initiate care and leave before they have had a chance to form a therapeutic alliance with their provider or witness the therapeutic effect, so understanding engagement with the goal of optimizing it could significantly improve outcomes while increasing efficiency in care systems. We need to embrace the complexity of mental health and the range of conditions, as there’s not one magical measurement to understand the different dimensions of mental health, my co-panelist, Megan Jones Bell, Director of Consumer and Mental Health at Google, noted.
- Prevention pays: While capturing ROI makes for a longer timeline and is challenging for the reimbursement process, many speakers continued to emphasize the importance of building culture and infrastructure around preventive mental health care, which is ultimately achieved through greater psychoeducation. Earlier in the year, Talkspace released a study called “The New Normalization,” which found, among other things, that 98% of our respondents (think of them as early adopters in the mental health space) believed mental health benefits should be covered regardless of someone having a diagnosable condition. The understanding that mental health is health has gone mainstream, meaning people are open to learning about strategies to increase their mental well-being rather than waiting for a problem to arise. This means we have an opportunity to educate the public more generally about stress management, strategies to build resilience, or even seeing a therapist to talk things through before they worsen. We must focus on “prevention and resiliency, so they can mitigate stress and burnout in their time of need,” offered Danielle Senn, Wellbeing Consultant for Gallagher.
- Invest in (and listen to) clinicians: We must invest in the clinicians caring for our patients. The demand for quality mental health care remains at an all-time high, and meeting that demand requires focusing on recruitment in a highly competitive market. My colleague Erin Boyd, Chief Growth Officer of Talkspace, noted that, beyond recruiting and compensation, we must all make investments in the provider experience to maintain a healthy clinician workforce. We must create a space where they can practice without being hamstrung by administrative tasks and give them a seat at the table so they have a voice in shaping how technology can drive efficiency, remove friction, and ultimately support them to do their best work. Innovations, like AI solutions, must ultimately optimize clinicians’ time while providing benefits to their patients.
- Public and private sector partnerships are a beacon of hope: The benefit of assembling leaders across behavioral health means that the crises will be met with creative and effective solutions. On day one of the conference, news trickled west that NYC Mayor Eric Adams and NYC Health Department Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan announced a groundbreaking initiative to provide free therapy and mental health resources to all NYC teens, ages 13-17, regardless of their school designation or any income threshold requirement, to any teen who wants and needs it. The initiative is powered by Talkspace and is one example of several discussed at the conference of the private and public sectors working to bring scalable solutions to serve vulnerable populations, such as the nation’s teens. We will see more of this throughout 2024, enabled by bi-partisan task forces at all levels of government and amongst lawmakers.
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As we closed this very first in-person edition of the Going Digital Behavioral Tech Conference, spearheaded by visionary and youth mental health advocate herself, Solome Tibebu, I am beyond optimistic that with a shared mission, concrete actions will follow.
By: Nikole Benders-Hadi, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Talkspace
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