How clinically-based digital self-care is transforming the future of behavioral health
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing heightened anxiety and stress for all of us in ways our society has never experienced. We find ourselves grappling with a potent mix of worries and daily stresses, whether it’s fear of falling sick, the immediate or potential risk of losing a job, juggling work and childcare in cramped quarters, or general uncertainty about the future. In an American Psychiatric Association poll released last week, 36% of Americans said the outbreak and its social and economic repercussions are having a serious impact on their mental health, and as the crisis evolves I anticipate this unfortunate statistic will continue to grow.
Difficult as this moment is for the average person, it is that much harder for those already managing behavioral health conditions. Required to stay home and shelter-in-place, people are finding themselves cut off from vital social support networks and day-to-day coping mechanisms. Loneliness and social isolation threaten every age group but pose a particular risk to seniors who are also most at-risk from COVID-19. As studies have shown, loneliness and isolation are associated with mortality rates equivalent to obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Against this backdrop, I can’t imagine a more urgent and timely moment to announce Livongo’s partnership with Kaiser Permanente to offer Livongo for Behavioral Health powered by myStrength, the behavioral health solution within our integrated chronic condition management platform, to Kaiser Members. After a yearlong evaluation process, Kaiser Permanente mental health professionals and Members evaluated and chose Livongo’s myStrength based on many factors, including a high-quality Member experience, clinical effectiveness, and interactive programming. This selection is another notable validator of myStrength’s impact, and the importance of offering people personalized support across their behavioral health needs.
Through the COVID-19 crisis and ongoing, Kaiser Members will have 24/7 access via their smartphone, computer or tablet to myStrength’s breadth of digital behavioral health tools, including coronavirus-specific modules to manage heightened stress, tips for parenting during challenging times, ideas to manage social isolation, and other information to support their mental health and emotional well-being.
More than ever, we’re recognizing the important role that digital self-care tools like Livongo’s myStrength can play to help people access the in-the-moment behavioral health guidance they need to navigate life’s challenges. Even before the recent crisis, demand for behavioral and mental health services was rapidly outstripping the availability of licensed professionals. With 55% of US counties lacking a single behavioral health specialist, 60% of Americans who need behavioral and mental health support are currently unable to access it. Livongo’s myStrength platform is helping to close this gap by putting an evidence-based self-care solution at the fingertips of millions who might otherwise be left without proven guidance and support.
In our strained healthcare system, digital behavioral health also serves as a powerful force multiplier for traditional face-to-face care. With mental health specialists in short supply and many people reluctant to face the stigma of seeing a specialist, primary care physicians (PCPs) shoulder an outsized portion of this care, accounting for 60% of all mental health diagnoses. However, PCPs are often ill-equipped or unwilling to fill this role due to a combination of lack of training, abbreviated visits, and reimbursement models that don’t compensate sufficiently for adequate care. In these contexts, Livongo’s myStrength can extend and supplement the care an overburdened PCP can reasonably expect to deliver. Rather than just sending people home with a prescription for an antidepressant, PCPs can offer Livongo’s myStrength platform: an effective, structured self-care program for a wide range of conditions, from anxiety and stress to depression and addiction.
Even where mental health specialists are available, Livongo’s myStrength can make their care more efficient and impactful by providing a convenient and structured bridge between sessions. Data shows that frequency and continuity of treatment, while challenging to achieve, is directly correlated with better outcomes. With Livongo’s myStrength, providers can assign between-session homework, with in-app nudges and reminders, to help people stay on track and make progress on self-care goals.
The worst days of the COVID-19 crisis — and its downstream effects on behavioral and mental health — unfortunately still lie ahead of us. We will likely see a spike in anxiety, depression, addiction and other conditions as people cope with grief, widespread job loss, and the existential trauma of feeling unsafe and vulnerable in the post COVID-19 world. This will place unprecedented demands on our nation’s already strained behavioral health capacity. Fortunately, as we’re seeing with the Kaiser Permanente partnership, we can enlist innovative tools like Livongo’s myStrength to bridge this gap and scale our response. In doing so, we will see how this kind of evidence-based, digital self-care becomes an indispensable part of how we support mental health and emotional well-being ongoing.