Today, behavioral health is more important than ever. Major news outlets, from The New York Times to The Wall Street Journal, constantly cover the mental health epidemics wracking the nation, be it widespread opioid abuse or the steady, upward creep of suicide and self-harm.Spurred on by the scope and severity of these societal problems (as well as new legislation passed to address them), the behavioral health sector has grown exponentially. Yet this field is not without its problems: despite
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Is Specialization a Contributing Factor to Deteriorating Mental Health Care?
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Robert A. HeinleinIn almost every walk of life, we worship at the altar of specific expertise. It
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Medibio Launches Mental Health Measurement App for Apple Watch
Medibio Limited, a world leader in objective measurement technology for mental health, announced today the release of a personal, mental health measurement technology app for Apple Watch users.With the Medibio app, Apple Watch users will be able to capture and process specific biometric features that reflect the performance of the body's autonomic nervous system (ANS) to create an objective view of their mental health.Users have the ability use the Medibio app in conjunction with Apple Watch
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Lyra Health Raises $45M to Connect Employees to Effective Mental Health Providers
Lyra Health, a Burlingame, CA-based digital health startup has raised $45 million in Series B funding to expand access to effective mental healthcare for companies and their employees. The round included participation from new investors Tenaya Capital, Glynn Capital, Crown Ventures, and Casdin Capital with existing investors including Greylock Partners, Venrock, and Providence Ventures. The company plans to use the latest round of founding to develop technology that improves treatment outcomes
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Big Health, Castlight Health Partner to Offer Clinically-Proven Employee Mental Health Solution
Digital medicine company Big Health, today announced a new partnership with leading health navigation platform provider Castlight Health. Now through Castlight’s suite of digital health and wellness solutions, employers will be able to seamlessly deliver improved sleep and mental health to their employees with Big Health’s digital sleep improvement program Sleepio.Sleepio is clinically proven to help individuals overcome insomnia as well as improve anxiety and depression via a web and mobile
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Why The Mental Health Industry Is Ripe For Innovation
Technology has been tested and proven effective in many advanced and innovative industries, and is now extending and applying its benefits to more regulated industries such as healthcare. According to Mary Meeker's Internet Trends 2017 report, healthcare is “at a digital inflection point.” She recognized and attributed this change in part to the increase of data collection from fitness trackers and health apps as well as the increase of hospitals sharing healthcare data with patients.As part of
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Can Telemedicine Transform the Mental Health Care Delivery Model?
People who suffer from mental illness not only struggle with their condition, but oftentimes struggle to get care. This is especially concerning when you consider that mental illness affects 1 in 5 people or 43 million in the US and that number is growing.1 These individuals stand to benefit from behavioral health counseling and support, but unfortunately their need is met with a shortage of mental health professionals. In fact, according to the U.S. Health Resources and Services
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Therachat Unveils AI-Chatbot Platform to Augment Therapy Sessions
Therachat, a smart journaling tool for therapists and their clients, today launched the next generation of its HIPAA-compliant platform designed to augment therapy sessions. The smart journaling application provides therapists with a customizable platform to assign homework to clients (like journaling and emotion tracking), direct messaging and text message analysis -- powered by artificial intelligence (AI).Beset by ignorant stigmas and bracing for funding cuts, mental health care faces a
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Parity Not Apparent: Mental Health Still Not Receiving Equal Attention
Getting legislation through Congress—often a monumental battle, as demonstrated by recent efforts to pass the American Health Care Act—is one thing. But implementing new laws may be a greater challenge simply because they require so much sustained energy and attention.Take mental health parity laws, for example.Congress passed the Mental Health Parity Act (MHPA) championed by Sens. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) in 1996. The law prohibits employee-sponsored group health plans
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Black Book: 94% of Physicians Find Digital Health Data Overwhelming, Redundant
94 percent of physicians find all that digital health data overwhelming, redundant and unlikely to make a clinical difference, according to Black Book’s recent consumer survey. Conducted from September through December 2016, the survey asked 12,090 adult consumers to evaluate the technology they were exposed to, know of or interacted with as an active patient in the last twelve months.The report revealed that 94 percent of consumers with health or activity trackers said their physician informed
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