Clinicians and patients alike, are warming to digital health tools that can ensure mental wellbeing.
FREMONT, CA: In the age of digital health, technology takes the front seat by optimizing mental health care deliveries. There are excellent digital tools out in the market to aid mental health monitoring curing. Here are a few innovations, which mental health startups are coming up with, to make mental health provisions more accessible and affordable.
• Cloud Practice Management System
A cloud-based practice management system captures all treatment-level information. With the cloud, encrypted data can be downloaded to a system in psychiatrists' network to make it convenient for them to provide care and increase scheduling flexibility. With this cloud management, patients need not be treated by the same therapy system for each treatment session, and psychiatrists who own multiple systems need not schedule sessions across several devices. Along with this, a psychiatrist can download and access the patient's encrypted information from the cloud and analyze it in real-time from their device. A cloud practice management system also manages the inventory of treatment sessions, which can be reviewed by an administrator online at any time.
The U.S. - based Neuronetics—developing non-invasive treatments for depression and other chronic psychiatric and neurological disorders — is providing a cloud practice management system, TrakStar Cloud. The platform captures and records daily system utilization, office productivity, and patient outcomes. The company visions to come up with the next version of TrackStar Cloud, enhanced with remote software updates, diagnostics, troubleshooting, and performance monitoring.
• Intelligent Data Platform
The data science wave that has transformed every industry has reached mental healthcare too. Algorithms developed from millions of patient health records are potent to predict psychological behaviors more accurately than traditional clinical assessments. Added machine learning capabilities can identify symptom patterns predicting response to specific mental illness treatments, which were previously unimaginable for practitioners. Inclusion of genomic data in clinical records is multiplying the possibilities for rapid learning from extensive records of the database.
Spring Health's intelligent data platform uses data to identify the right treatment for each patient's need. After completing a short assessment, care providers and patients can get a personalized, evidence-based treatment plan that includes a combination of exercise, digital cognitive behavioral therapy, medication, and many more.
• Mental Health Apps and Patient Service Centers
A person searching for mental health in an app store is usually confronted with a bewildering array of choices. The smartphone-based mental health apps represent a unique opportunity to expand the availability and quality of mental health treatment. Mental health apps are increasingly prescribed to supplement psychiatric treatment and help patients self-manage their mental health conditions. They span all stages of clinical care provision, including immediate diagnosis, primary treatment, and post-treatment condition management. For care providers, they are an excellent choice for psychological treatment delivery compared to any other platform due to ease of use, and low effort expectancy. The San Francisco-based startup, Calm is a meditation and relaxation aid app which promises to help users sleep better, boost confidence, and reduce stress and anxiety—all with the help of guided meditations, soothing music, and bedtime stories.
• Telemental Health and Live Support
Telemental health is a new multidisciplinary approach enabling psychiatric services rendered to patients with the help of information technology. This can be useful to individuals who live in rural and remote areas. Most telemental health services involve assessment, therapy, and diagnosis. Clinical mental health counselors are interacting with patients through a wide range of technological tools, including apps, videoconferencing, text messaging, websites, and many more. Telemental health saves time for clinicians by cutting down on the need to commute to the patient's place. It also removes many of the barriers that lead to long waits to meet care providers. By offering increased provider options and a multitude of available technological vehicles, telemental health is becoming a useful alternative for those delivering and seeking mental health services.
A pioneering healthcare tech company striving to improve the lives of people with mental health conditions, Quartet Health is providing a telemental health platform. This platform assists caregivers set up teletherapy and telepsychiatry sessions to ease care. The company also avails a dedicated team of mental health practitioners to review complex cases in real-time. Quartet believes that its ability to connect people to the right care through technology has improved quality of care delivery.
Patient service center prescribes digital therapeutics for patients. These centers can connect patients to dedicated health support throughout their treatment and healthcare providers to clinical dashboard resources. PearTherapeutics' PearConnect is the industry's leading patient service center. It helps to drive adoption of the new treatment modality by facilitating problem-solving among patients and mental healthcare providers.
In this age of consistent technological innovations, every industry is moving towards more efficient products and services. No doubt that technology has opened a new frontier in mental health support. This new wave is giving the medical practitioners and researchers innovative ways to monitor the progress of care delivery and increase understanding of psychological well being. The excitement about a massive range of opportunities is triggering the boom of competent startups, which are developing various applications contributing to mental health management. In the future, one can only expect bigger and better benefits from these entrants.
Check out: Top Healthcare Startups
