The Need for Mental Healthcare is Growing

The Need for Mental Healthcare is Growing

From Kanye West’s bipolar disorder to Leonardo Dicaprio’s OCD, many celebrities are revealing they live with mental health challenges. Speaking publicly about these issues is helping to break down centuries-old stigmatization of these illnesses.

And the timing couldn’t be better.

COVID and lockdowns have placed a greater burden on mental health needs, while also resulting in a greater adoption of technology by patients to track symptoms. On the organizational side, institutions are seeing a greater demand for mental health care, and the need is only expected to grow.

According to Medi-Tech Insights, a global healthcare research firm, the digital mental and behavioural health market is going to see an exponential 25% growth over the next five years.

Your organization has the opportunity to meet this need head on by optimizing your EHR software today. Providing mental health care is complicated, but the right software can make life easier for you and your team, meaning better care for your patients.

US mental health stats at a glance

• In 2020, 1 in 5 US adults experienced a mental illness
• In the LGBTQ community, the prevalence of mental health disorders is 47.4%
• Only about half of those who need it receive mental health treatment
• 150 million Americans live in Mental Health Professional Shortage Area according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

How the AURA system can help make patient care better

Many organizations, while well-meaning, have inefficient processes that mental health patients find confusing. Missed reminder calls, hard-to-understand voicemails, and painfully slow snail mail can inadvertently cause patients to feel detached, falling behind on their health progress, or even neglecting their own care.

No one wants their patient to be another mental health statistic.

From a patient perspective, there’s a simple solution: having access everything they need in one place that is easy to access from any device.

In an online patient portal, like Sigmund Software’s AURA, patients can:

• sign off on treatment plans
• print out misplaced prescriptions
• check their next appointment time
• access informational handouts and videos
• take surveys
• track their symptoms
• visualize their progress over time, helping them see how far they’ve come

The simpler the process means better compliance and better outcomes, helping patients feel ownership and pride over their own care. It also means they know what to expect next, and how to best prepare for each treatment.

Reducing burnout among staff with easy systems

At a time when staff are leaving the health-care space due to overwork and burnout, it’s never been more important to make their lives easier. We know we’ve done our job right when you don’t notice our software humming away in the background, and it’s not causing extra stress. Less time spent worrying about paperwork and learning multiple systems means more time spent with patients.

Everything your staff needs to operate at their best is available at their fingertips:

• scheduling for staff and patients
• billing and compliance made easy
• effortless data collection
• tracking patient progress via client-centric graphs
• customized workflows
• staff communication channels
• seamless onboarding for new staff, and more.

Any care team member can access, and update, patient records so that nothing gets missed. Importantly, automation and centralization save you precious time and money.

Looking to the future of mental health care

With the need for mental health care growing by the day, Sigmund Software is helping to make the burden lighter one client at a time. Through our customizable AURA platform, we can help meet your specific organization’s requirements while helping improve access to mental health care by making life easier for you and your patients alike.

See how Sigmund Software is serving behavioral and mental healthcare with industry leading technology.