Holistic Healthcare Panel Summary
Helping people live less stressed and more mindful lives is CHILL and my mission. We really care about this. Collectively, we have dedicated the last 5-years to helping businesses promote wellness within their workforce and beyond. So, when I was asked by the Executive’s Club of Chicago to lead a Holistic Healthcare panel with a group of esteemed female leaders, all with clinical backgrounds, I put my introverted tendency aside and said yes. Our conversation proved even more interesting than expected. We discussed the well received expansion of virtual medicine, the importance of creating psychologically safe cultures, and why taking an integrative approach to medicine is crucial to overall well-being.
Tracy Davidson, Senior Vice President of Optum Behavioral Health, shared some enlightening data including:
In 2019, 7,000 providers from Optum Behavioral Health were using virtual care. This increased to 76,000 documented providers as of November 2021. Davidson suspects the actual number of providers offering virtual patient care in her network is closer to 100,000+. On the member side, they have seen a 2,300% increase in people accessing virtual care - about 50% of all their outpatient claims. People are embracing this change. Telemedicine trends are here to stay. Many of the things that we thought couldn’t be done through virtual care are being done with the same or better outcomes. This will help with access problems, disparities, and inequity. Davidson expects this trend to continue because, “consumers are willing, able and leaning into more and more virtual support” and their patients are finding offers more privacy, comfort, and even better connections vs. in-person care.
In addition to the increase in virtual services, integrated holistic care is at the forefront of healthcare in this new world. Davidson believes these services will be expanded to a collaborative group of offerings treating the whole human which will be paid for, and encouraged by, employers. Employers can empower and educate employees to, “leverage the system more wisely” by using self-directed tools like mindfulness activities, meditation and yoga. Davidson said 50% of their provider searches are for psychiatrists even though the, “majority of people are looking for a low-acuity solution. They know they need something, but they don’t know what they need.”
Davidson believes we have to expand offerings to support patient care due to limitations on resources. For instance, “The whole state of Idaho is considered a mental-health shortage state” by the US government. The University created Project Echo for training, engaging and assigning ancillary providers in mental healthcare to create a multifaceted workforce for holistic patient care.
Garvita Sethi, Founder, CEO and Executive Director of Accede Solutions, shared her perspective on employer mental health support:
She’s seeing an acceleration in benefits like yoga rooms, mental health days, 4-day work weeks, more flexibility in terms of remote work, and mindfulness training amongst other benefits. These aren’t to be marginalized, but Sethi thinks the key is going to be a change in culture within organizations all the way up to the C-suite. “In the old days mental health support was a nice-to-have. It’s now required. It’s so important for your bottom line. It’s become a true business imperative. It will increase productivity, it will increase retention, it will decrease healthcare and disability costs. More and more employers are realizing the benefits of focusing on employees' mental health.”
Sethi is also noticing more openness and a push for creating an environment to provide a safe space and psychological safety for the workforce. She emphasized the importance of management support for employees’ mental health, “If the management does not have a buy-in, the staff is suffering and the management doesn’t realize it [then] the staff does not come in and talk about it because they don’t feel heard. There’s a top-down and a bottom up approach; I think we need both”. This was echoed by the other panelists.
Katherine Suberlak, Vice President of Clinical Programs at Oak Street Health, noted:
Suberlak says, “Expansion of audio-only has been important for our population.” A challenge that this population faces is both internet access and functionality in terms of connection and ability to use the internet well. She continued, “being able to connect audio-only has been really well-received...particularly as a proactive engagement to leverage the core components of collaborative care, to see faster results, and to increase quality outcomes particularly related to mental health.”
Beyond providing just-in-time care, Suberlak supports a holistic, coordinated approach with an integrated team to offer medical and relationship-based care. “That’s where we can have a lot of acceleration and impact on the prevention side and with those individuals experiencing severe mental illness” she explained. At Oak Street Health, they work to support and train wellness coaches as a part of an integrated medical team to holistically take care of patients whether it’s through visits to the doctor or just calling for check-ins.
Suberlak also shared how people want assurances that they will be safe despite the uncertainty around COVID — whether going in for healthcare visits or returning to work. Beyond an individual response, it’s now about a, “collective responsibility to ensure emotional, physical, psychological safety whether that’s in the workplace or the patient experience” which has been helpful to the movement of holistic healthcare.
COVID has exacerbated mental illness globally and accelerated people’s need for care, especially virtual care. There has been an associated decrease in stigma; a silver lining in the midst of today’s chaos. My view is that you can be a part of the solution or a part of the problem. Fortunately, many solutions are accessible, affordable, increasingly creative and prophylactic. At CHILL we offer custom wellness solutions to meet the needs of diverse businesses. We focus on getting to know our partners, creating accessible content, and delivering this content in a way that best supports the workforce. To learn more about CHILL’s wellness solutions please reach out to me or the CHILL team at info@chillanywhere.com. We are here to listen and help. It’s good for you and your company.