ATLANTA, May 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Mental healthcare thought leaders, including nView Health’s own Chief Medical Officer and Founder Thomas Young, MD, have witnessed first-hand how our healthcare system fails to accurately identify and properly diagnose individuals who need behavioral health assistance. And in the minority of instances where a patient is correctly diagnosed, our healthcare system then fails to adequately support them.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem. In 2019, it was estimated that nearly one in five U.S. adults were living with a mental illness. This figure has significantly increased due to the pandemic as the Kaiser Family Foundation reports roughly 4 in 10 U.S. adults state they have symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder.
“It’s apparent that we are entering a mental health pandemic — one that we are woefully unprepared to address,” said Dr. Young, a board-certified family physician with more than 35 years of medical experience. “For far too long, our fragmented behavioral health system has relied upon antiquated tools and methodologies while not offering the educational and financial support providers needed to deliver critical services. We are not only failing to protect and help most individuals with mental illness but are often introducing problematic treatments that further complicate illnesses. We must take consequential actions that can begin repairing our mental health system.”
Among the actions Dr. Young and nView leadership are calling for:
- Increased focus on and resources allocated toward destigmatizing mental illness
- Assessment of the existing mechanisms used to quickly identify, evaluate, and diagnose individuals with mental illness
- An overhaul of the behavioral health payment system
- Enhanced education for providers
- Movement toward reliance upon evidence-based tools to empower measurement-based care
- Evaluation of the usage of and reliance upon medications
- Legislation to support these and other objectives
Throughout Mental Health Month, nView, the premier provider of evidence-based behavioral health solutions, will be offering resources to support the company’s call for action. This includes webinars, infographics, podcasts, interviews with behavioral health experts, and publications, which can be found at nview.com. In addition, Dr. Young and nView leaders will be available to the media to discuss the problems with our current mental health system, why an overhaul is desperately needed, and the immediate and long-term changes required to fix the system.
“We encourage everyone involved with the delivery of behavioral healthcare to use Mental Health Month as a catalyst to stop accepting the current state of failure and instead join our efforts to provide a necessary makeover of our nation’s mental healthcare system,” said Jim Szyperski, Chief Executive Officer at nView.
Dr. Young added, “Mental Health Month provides an opportunity to step back, assess the status quo, and recognize all of the reasons it’s broken. Mental healthcare is, in fact, healthcare so let’s use this time as a springboard to better digital solutions that can make our care delivery system safer, stronger, and more inclusive.”
About nView Health
nView Health is the premier provider of evidence-based software and solutions used by research organizations and healthcare professionals around the world to help them identify, treat, and monitor mental health disorders, a critical requirement for measurement-based care. nView is the worldwide exclusive licensee for a broad array of behavioral health screening solutions, structured interviews, and post-diagnosis severity measurement scales to monitor patient outcomes. To learn more, please visit nview.com or follow nView Health on LinkedIn or Twitter.
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Holly Wilson
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SOURCE nView Health
