COVID-19 THOUGHT LEADERS Q&A
How to Accelerate Business Recovery During COVID-19 with Remote Behavioral Health
How does your organization view the COVID-19 landscape today compared to at the onset of the pandemic? What has changed that’s especially noteworthy?
COVID-19 has required a rapid response from our healthcare system. Patients need immediate access to care. Their symptoms, whether physical or mental, and conditions are at risk for worsening. Care providers need support. They require integrated solu- tions to provide remote, holistic care. Health systems need a lifeline. Posting massive losses, they need ways to transform their business, ease the transition to value-based care and create new revenue streams. The pandemic has clearly changed the healthcare landscape dramatically, espe- cially with regards to behavioral health. Pre-pandemic, we already had 1 in 4 people suffering from mental illness and only about 30% getting treatment. Now the pandemic has brought on an onslaught of challenges like social isolation, economic downturns, and tense socio-political conditions that have amplified the effects of depression, anxiety, and substance use disorder. The CDC, KFF, and others have recently
released reports citing a massive rise in the prevalence of mental illness in nearly all communities caused by the pandemic. Fortunately, in addition to the spike in need, there has been a spike in response. We’ve never been busier as our healthcare partners in medical groups, health systems, insurance providers and the government are all making large investments in remote behavioral health tools and services. Our mission has always been to bridge the gap between physical and mental health, and it has never been more important that we execute on it.
All this said, the most noteworthy change I’ve noticed is that integrated, virtual health solutions are no longer on the fringe or “nice to have” - they will serve as the foundation and future of care delivery as we know it.
How are you specifically helping your customers respond in this current moment?
Agility is one of the core principles of our business. Right from the beginning, Neu- roFlow recognized an immediate need for
additional behavioral health screenings, resources and support. Our clinical opera- tions team compiled a resource guide offering evidence based tools our partners needed to respond rapidly to the pandem- ic’s impact on behavioral health. Since then we’ve been working diligently
to provide additional educational informa- tion and skill building resources to help end users make informed decisions and enhance the content on our platform to offer new ways to cope with unexpected stressors dur- ing this uncertain time. And these resources are not limited to our clients, we made them readily available to the public on our website with the goal of helping providers, caregiv- ers, and patients find support.
Can you illustrate a few ways in which health IT innovation has evolved in the face of the pandemic?
There has always been a high level of inno- vation when it comes to healthcare. What’s interesting is that the pandemic has spurred a transformation around the business of healthcare.
The emergence of telehealth
solutions, the deployment of mobile offer- ings, policy changes and new reimburse- ment models - there has been a lot done in the span of a few months to support the rapid adoption of new technologies as pro- viders look to respond to the pandemic and support patients. There’s plenty more to do, but we’re witnessing a true acceleration of technology that is removing long standing barriers to care.
Health systems and clinics had to quickly shift their clinical and IT infrastructures to meet the virtual care demand. What lessons learned in this area can be applied to the future?
There are so many factors that go into a deci- sion around virtual care. Security, access and adoption, efficacy, interoperability, scale, are just a few that come to mind. COVID-19 has required organizations, which historically have not moved fast, to make decisions quickly - often without their normal level of governance. In an environment where there are a lot of options, each of which bring unique value - evaluating and finding solu- tions has proven to be challenging and for
Chris Molaro CEO
NeuroFlow
some has led to the adoption of solutions that were not necessarily the right fit for the needs of the organization, in both the short and long term.
Can you offer one prediction for the future as it relates to what the virtual care landscape will look in a post-COVID-19 world?
I can definitely offer one but let me give you four. Digital health is here to stay. Healthcare consumerism has been accelerated. Trans- formation is no longer an option. Fee-for- service is no longer the status quo. COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic and will not be the last pinnacle event to reshape our industry. We as providers of care, solutions, and support must adapt to a rapidly changing world and put ourselves in a position of readiness like never before.
Chris Molaro is the CEO and co-founder of NeuroFlow, a digital health technology and analytics company promoting behavioral health access and engagement in all care set- tings. Chris is a former U.S. Army Captain from the US Military Academy at West Point and earned his MBA at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where he also spent time as digital health consultant at Mckinsey. Chris was also the founder of the literacy non-profit Things We Read.
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