“9 out of 10 students indicate that their campus is in a full blown mental health crisis. Prior to Covid, 10% of all of our visits were focused on mental health. And at this point, close to 80% of all of the visits that we have with students are our related to mental health,” says Luke Hejl, CEO of TimelyMD, the leading virtual health and well-being solution for college students.

“What we're seeing is that while isolation is not the top concern anymore, a good majority of students indicate that they struggle with anxiety and depression. So the need for mental help has never been greater from a higher education perspective,” says Luke Hejl.

As mentioned by Michael Maus, CCO of Iris Telehealth, a leading provider of telepsychiatry services for health systems and community health centers across the U.S., only one out of four people in the US who need mental health help search for it. “In rural Pennsylvania, 18,000 patients are waiting to see a psychiatrist. We're seeing a significant increase in children and adolescents, but 75% of counties in our country do not have a child psychiatrist,” he mentioned.

In this episode, Luke and Michael talked about the state of mental health in the younger population and how the two companies look at digital innovation and digital therapeutics in the mental health space.

DTx and mental health

Telemedicine and digital offering are ameliorated by clinically validated digital apps - digital therapeutics (DTx). Despite their proven impact on clinical outcomes, however, these solutions are scaling slowly due to regulation and the time it takes to gain trust with the end-users and prescribers who need to be convinced to use DTx alongside or instead of conventional medical treatments. Regulation of DTx is different in every country, with Germany at the forefront globally. Germany has a clear process for the approval of apps which, once approved, have to be reimbursed by insurance. The DiGA repository (repository of digital therapeutics in Germany) currently includes 15 mental health-related apps.

Commenting from the perspective of Iris Telehealth, Michael Maus observes a consolidation between telehealth providers and digital therapeutics innovations. “The classic curve is happening. I do look around inside the health conferences and wonder how many of these companies are going to be here next year? As we’re looking for the right partners, we want to partner with companies that are strong and healthy. We see the slowing of the market and the amount of money coming in to fund all these organizations.” In essence, digital therapeutics still have a long way to go before the broader adoption.

“One of our values that stands out to me is people above all else, and the other one is my favorite is suck less every day. We need to improve every single day. And it's okay to make a mistake. Let's just make sure we're not making a mistake around patient safety,” says Michael Maus.

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