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The Key to a Sustainable Model of Mental Healthcare
Here in this post, we are discussing “The Key to a Sustainable Model of Mental Healthcare”. You can read more about psychology-related material on our website. Keep visiting Psychology Roots.
Patients need to have faith that the care they are receiving has been thoroughly tested for safety and efficacy before they submit to it. Looks pretty apparent, right? Whether a doctor’s visit, online consultation, prescription drug, or app-based mobile therapy is used to treat a patient, the medical community depends on the mutual trust between patients, doctors, and pharmaceutical corporations. Care quality should be consistent no matter the delivery method.
That’s why it worries me that certain mental health applications are being published without the same level of testing as traditional therapies. Even if an app is “evidence-informed,” it still doesn’t measure up to the “evidence-based” criteria of medical therapies, which need both randomised clinical studies and real-world data to show its efficacy and clinical effectiveness.
Just picture the consequences of introducing a treatment for cancer or hypertension without first establishing its efficacy. Absolutely not, you can count on it. Despite this, vulnerable persons battling with their mental health and seeking assistance are often recommended such solutions, many of which are categorised as health and wellness applications. As such, it is our responsibility to ensure them have access to effective treatments.
In contrast, digital therapeutics—often categorised as software as a medical device—provide evidence-based, clinically validated software to treat and prevent a wide range of health concerns, and thereby achieve the same stringent criteria as conventional medicines in the medical sector. Differentiating whether digital products fit these criteria and successfully treat mental health is important for clinicians, patients, and insurers. Too much is at risk, help is desperately needed right now, and those with mental health issues should have access to effective therapies.
Complicated Mental Health Crisis
There are two separate but related mental health crises happening right now in our society. The first problem is the rapidly increasing prevalence of mental health issues. By 2021, 44% of American high school students would have experienced “persistent emotions of sadness or hopelessness,” up from 26% in 2009. Almost a third of all individuals will suffer from an anxiety condition at some point in their lives. Four out of ten persons have depressive or anxious symptoms, an increase from a decade ago.
Second, there aren’t enough doctors to go around. The United States alone will need approximately 4.5 million more certified mental health workers by 2020, according to a research by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. There are now over 100,000 licenced therapists practising in the US.
Face-to-face counselling is crucial, but it can’t be scaled to meet the needs of everyone. For all the patients who need need treatment, it would take a long time and a huge effort to educate enough physicians to serve them. Medication (or “pharmacotherapy”) has been utilised as a scalable intervention to fill a gap in cognitive behavioural therapy. One-quarter of Americans use a psychiatric medication.
However, drugs aren’t always designed as a permanent fix, and some patients would rather try something else. Patients in need of mental health care services should be offered a scalable alternative to in-person counselling and pharmaceuticals.
A New Era for Digital Therapeutics
There is a logical mistake at the root of the widespread misunderstanding between health applications and digital therapies. Some applications may claim to be helpful only because they apply cognitive behavioural therapy. CBT has direct affects on ideas, actions, biology, and physiology, and has been shown to aid patients in changing their behaviour and constructing life skills to deal with problems like anxiety and sleeplessness.
They argue that because CBT has been shown to be beneficial, their software must also be effective. Not so. In order to be considered effective, each app must demonstrate that its interface and method of delivering CBT are both reliable and efficient. In a piece I published for Health Affairs, I argued that only by insisting on the highest quality of evidence could doctors and patients tell the difference between a legitimate digital treatment and a harmless wellness app.
It is easy to see why digital therapeutics has grown into a multibillion dollar sector, drawing interest from healthcare providers, patients, and payers who all see the need for a scalable, evidence-based therapy option for mental health. The digital therapeutics industry is projected to increase from $3.5 billion in 2020 to $23.5 billion in 2030. Some may be tempted to use an established business strategy when it comes to digital medicines because of the huge potential it presents. One may launch a product, sell it, collect data, and refine it as they go while developing software that increases corporate efficiency or offers enjoyment.
However, a medical therapy cannot be compared to the functionality of a smartphone or laptop. In order for a patient to begin using a digital treatment, they must have faith that it has been shown to be successful via research. We can’t have patients wondering whether they’re getting a real treatment or just a placebo. Because a treatment is delivered digitally does not mean we can relax our standards any more than we can relax our standards for a disease that affects the mind rather than the body.
Digital Therapeutics Supporting Stronger Mental Health Care Systems
When digital therapeutics are held to rigorous standards, they have the potential to help close the care gap in mental health and provide another avenue for treating the millions of individuals who need it. This is an approach motivated as much by data as by optimism. Data from both controlled clinical studies and real-world use have shown which digital treatments are most useful in the treatment of mental illness. To begin, let’s look at it.
Because it has been done before, we know it is feasible to hold digital treatments to an evidence-based standard. A moral and professional responsibility is created when applications are released to the public as if they are proven therapies when they have not attained that quality and do not aim to.
It’s understandable that some doctors, health plans, and consumers are still wary of the new approach. However, if we can raise the bar on testing so that all digital therapeutics meet the evidence-based standards of other medical therapies, we can increase this confidence, build trust, and develop a scalable model of mental healthcare that has the potential to revolutionise the industry and provide much-needed care. Evidence-based solutions are essential to building a long-term mental health system, and digital therapies are well-positioned to provide them. The millions of individuals who are struggling with mental health issues need and deserve to be safeguarded from harm.
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