“The Atlantic” and the “National Council for Behavioral Health” held their cutting-edge inaugural eHealth Executive Summit on May 7th to showcase the latest innovations at the intersection of technology, mental health, substance abuse treatment, and wellness.
Linda Rosenberg, President and CEO for the National Council for Behavioral Health commented that the country is in the middle of a technology revolution that is changing every aspect of our lives and will continue to transform mental health.
Steve Clemons Washington Editor-at-Large for The Atlantic, kicked off the program by presenting thought provoking questions to Jacob Reider, MD, Deputy National Coordinator for HIT at HHS.
As for technology creating changes in the mental health field, Dr. Reider thinks that it is not always necessary for providers to be in the same room conducting face-to-face visits to help patients with behavioral health issues. He is excited about moving information from provider to provider so that responsibility for care and risk can be shared.
Several leaders appeared on a panel to discuss “Integrated Care: Patient Health and Technology Goals in 2014” with James Hamblin, Senior Editor for The Atlantic leading the discussion on actions needed to effectively combine mental health with 21st century technology.
Panelist Thomas Insel, MD, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health commented, “We don’t have treatments to truly deal with suicide victims. Presently, our suicide rates aren’t coming down and today 38,000 people commit suicides every year. The biggest problem is that in our country, suicide is not made a high enough priority.
Dr. Insel reports that there are several important ongoing research activities in neuroimaging to use with autism that looks very promising along with developing sensors for the brain. As he sees it, the eHealth revolution is just beginning in the mental health arena.
NIMH is collecting and building a database to house all of the precise data needed to move forward in the mental health field. For example, we don’t know enough about schizophrenia simply because we don’t have enough data since the infrastructure needed hasn’t been built yet.
According to Dr. Insel, “We will need to take all of the information from sensors, build what is called an “Information Comet”, then define an individual’s pathway forward to be able to cure mental disorders.”
Benjamin Steve Bunney, MD, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Yale and Senior Advisor to Colbalt Therapeutics www.cobalttx.com described how the company is advancing cognitive behavioral therapy that is both high tech and high touch to help patients unlearn complex problematic behaviors that are detrimental and learn to substitute new helpful behaviors.
Colbalt’s online CBT software is delivered in several interactive sessions just like traditional therapy only the therapy is delivered over the internet with individuals interacting with the screen and doing interactive exercises. According to the results from clinical trials, this form of treatment using technology has proven to be as effective as face-to-face meetings where clinicians act as coaches to address anxiety, compulsive behaviors, and substance abuse.
Other panelists included Raja Mazumder, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at George Washington University where he is actively working on “Big Data” genomics and directing projects to enable the sharing of data analysis. He finds it a challenge to work with the present speed of the internet and would like to see higher speeds via the internet to deal effectively with the huge amounts of data coming our way.
“We are at the intersection of combining the use of technology with healthcare”, reports Wendy Nilsen PhD, Health Scientist Administrator, NIH, and Program Director for the Smart and Connected Health Program at the National Science Foundation. She points out that this is driving care into the home especially when treating depression as help is more quickly available remotely when a crisis situation occurs. It is important for systems to be smart enough to treat depression in the moment.
For more information, go to www.theatlantic.com