Empowered Patient Podcast Tech-Enabled Measurement-Informed Behavioral Healthcare Includes Therapy and Psychiatry with Dr. Doug Newton Rula Health
Dr. Doug Newton is the Chief Medical Officer at Rula Health, a tech-enabled provider group that offers therapy, psychiatry, care coordination, and other supportive behavioral health services with a whole-person approach. Mental health disorders are diagnosed and managed using a combination of sound clinical judgment and measurement-informed care, which involves using patient-reported data and other objective measures. Normalizing mental health and using objective measures can help doctors bring up the topic with people of all ages to develop a personalized plan to maintain good physical and psychological health.
Doug explains, "We do know that the behavioral health crisis was exacerbated by COVID. Still, unfortunately, for most demographic groupings, it was already starting before the pandemic hit. Using adolescents as an example, because I’m a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist by training, I saw this trend, so I looked at the data. We saw that was already a problem for kids, adolescents, and adults, where the rates of depression and anxiety were going up, as well as despair, as well as suicidal ideation - and, unfortunately, completion - were going up prior to COVID. It went up even further with COVID. We’re seeing, unfortunately, either continued or slightly increased in the years post-COVID as well."
"The next component is, okay, great, let’s get people to equitable and quick quality care. That’s been harder. And so I do think that telehealth has allowed us to do that. I think it’s allowed more equitable care across rural and urban areas. It’s allowed providers and patients to find one another in a way we haven’t been able to before. And that’s great. I think the next frontier is making sure that we are providing the right care, and we can measure ways of providing the right care to that person. Highly personalized outcomes-based care is the frontier that we’re going into next, and that’s going to be critical."
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