Today, Senators Schatz (D-HI), Wicker (R-MS), Cardin (D-MD), Thune (R-SD), Warner (D-VA) and Hyde-Smith (R-MS) introduced the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act of 2019. The CONNECT Act would expand the use of telehealth services with Medicare. This will be the third attempt to pass this particular legislation as the CONNECT for Health Act was initially introduced in 2016 and again in 2017 but both times it did not pass Congress.

Currently, Medicare limits the use of telehealth to certain services, providers, technology and patient locations. For example, Medicare limits the location where the patient can be during a telehealth visit (also known as originating site) to only eight facilities, including provider offices, hospitals, crucial access hospitals, rural health clinics (RHCs), federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), skilled nursing facilities, community mental health centers or hospital-based renal dialysis centers. Notably, a patient’s home is not one of the eight eligible sites. Furthermore, the eight above mentioned sites must be either located in a Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) or in a county that is outside any Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). These requirements restrict the impact that telehealth can have to Medicare beneficiaries given its narrow scope.

The CONNECT Act of 2019 seeks to address both of these restrictions. For mental health services delivered via telehealth, the Act aims to add the home to the list of eight eligible originating sites. It also seeks to remove the geographic restrictions on all originating site locations and FQHCs, RHCs, and Indian Health Service facilities. Additionally, the geographic restrictions would be lifted for hospitals, critical access hospitals, or skilled nursing facilities for the use of telehealth in emergency medical care services.

Overall, the CONNECT Act would greatly expand the reach of telehealth services for Medicare beneficiaries. Given the nature of the Medicare population, having to travel to one of the eight eligible originating sites to receive telehealth services may not be feasible. In many cases, when faced with this barrier, individuals often delay care. However, if Medicare beneficiaries are able to receive services, such as telemental health, within the comfort of their own home, access to care will be significantly increased.

The CONNECT Act proposals to improve the telehealth

InSight supports the proposed changes within the CONNECT Act and has become an endorsing organization on this bill, joining over 120 other organizations including the American Psychiatric Association, American Telemedicine Association and National Council for Behavioral Health. InSight is a tireless advocate for telehealth legislation that works to expand access to quality behavioral health care to underserved communities and populations. Through the CONNECT Act, Medicare beneficiaries stand to benefit from increased access to needed telehealth and telemental health services.

About InSight Telepsychiatry

InSight is the leading national telepsychiatry service provider organization with a mission to increase access to quality behavioral health care through innovative applications of technology. InSight has over two decades of telepsychiatry experience and serves hundreds of organizations across the country with its on-demand, scheduled services and Inpathy divisions. InSight is uniquely positioned to offer scalable telepsychiatry services in settings across the continuum of care. InSight has a diverse team of psychiatry providers, a robust internal infrastructure and a history of adapting its programs to fit the needs of a variety of different settings and populations. InSight has led the growth of the telepsychiatry industry and remains an industry thought leader and advocate. To learn more about telepsychiatry and how it can benefit you or your organization, visit www.InSightTelepsychiatry.com.

How often do you hear or see, “If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1.800.273.8255 or if it is a true emergency call 911,” on the news or in the media? If you were in a crisis, would you remember that number? As you may be aware, a new suicide hotline number was recently introduced and is soon to be up for public comment.

This started in 2018 when the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act was enacted. One thing that the Act required was for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct a study to examine the feasibility of creating a simple, easy to remember, three-digit number for suicide prevention, much like the emergency services number, 911. Currently, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 10-digits long.

This August, the FCC completed their report and sent it to Congress. Through their analysis, the FCC recommended designating 988 as the suicide hotline number. In addition to being easier to remember, new this number would route people to their local crisis lines if applicable.

Adopting 988 as the Official National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

This change would not require congressional or presidential approval. The FCC is expected to issue a public notice that it is considering formally adopting the 988 number for the suicide hotline. The proposal will be subject to a period of public comment and a final vote among the FCC’s commissioners before it can go into effect.

InSight, along with many others in the mental health field, signed on to show their support for implementing 988 as the official National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

By shortening the current 10-digit suicide hotline number to three-digits, the hope is that it will be easier for people to remember and will facilitate access to live-saving resources when people need them the most.

About InSight Telepsychiatry

InSight is the leading national telepsychiatry service provider organization with a mission to increase access to quality behavioral health care through innovative applications of technology. InSight has over two decades of telepsychiatry experience and serves hundreds of organizations across the country with its on-demand, scheduled services and Inpathy divisions. InSight is uniquely positioned to offer scalable telepsychiatry services in settings across the continuum of care. InSight has a diverse team of psychiatry providers, a robust internal infrastructure and a history of adapting its programs to fit the needs of a variety of different settings and populations. InSight has led the growth of the telepsychiatry industry and remains an industry thought leader and advocate. To learn more about telepsychiatry and how it can benefit you or your organization, visit www.InSightTelepsychiatry.com.

MARLTON, NJ – InSight Telepsychiatry continues to advocate strongly for telemedicine-friendly changes to the Ryan Haight Act and recently joined 18 other healthcare organizations in supporting a letter penned by the ATA to the DEA. This letter outlines specific recommendations and concerns regarding the development of the upcoming special registration for telemedicine.  Specifically, these signatories strongly encourage the DEA to consider how the process and criteria for special registration for controlled substance prescribing via telemedicine can impact patients living with serious, chronic, disabling, and debilitating conditions, such as substance use disorder and psychiatric conditions.

InSight Telepsychiatry Joins Other Signatories in Imploring DEA for More Flexible Controlled Substance Prescribing via Telemedicine

InSight, along with numerous national organizations, firmly believes that telemedicine has the power to transform our nation’s health care system, reduce disparities in health outcomes and significantly expand access to care among patients in underserved communities.  As such, we feel strongly that any regulations promulgated regarding the special registration for telemedicine must be structured to enable the safe prescribing of certain controlled substances via telemedicine.

To read the full stakeholder letter to the DEA on a Special Registration provision for telemedicine under the Ryan Haight Act click here.

We look forward to the DEA’s release of the special registration for public comment prior to the October 24, 2019, deadline and are confident that the final version of this federal policy will open the doors to more people being served via telemedicine.

About InSight Telepsychiatry

InSight is the leading national telepsychiatry service provider organization with a mission to increase access to quality behavioral health care through innovative applications of technology.  InSight has over two decades of telepsychiatry experience and serves hundreds of organizations across the country with its on-demand, scheduled services and Inpathy divisions. InSight is uniquely positioned to offer scalable telepsychiatry services in settings across the continuum of care. InSight has a diverse team of psychiatry providers, a robust internal infrastructure and a history of adapting its programs to fit the needs of a variety of different settings and populations.  InSight has led the growth of the telepsychiatry industry and remains an industry thought leader and advocate.  To learn more about telepsychiatry and how it can benefit you or your organization, visit www.InSightTelepsychiatry.com.

Regroup to educate Federally Qualified Health Center across IL, IA, MO

CHICAGO, IL, Sept. 19, 2019 - Regroup Telehealth, a telepsychiatry company, and the Illinois Primary Health Care Association (IPHCA) today announced a joint partnership aimed at expanding access to behavioral healthcare across Illinois, Iowa and Missouri.

“Telepsychiatry is an ideal solution to deliver services to patients of community health centers in remote and underserved areas,” said Jordan Powell, president and chief executive officer of IPHCA. “Regroup’s ability to integrate scarce clinicians into IPHCA’s network of community health centers is extremely valuable, and we look forward to seeing an increase in patients utilizing accessible treatment.”

Tags: Regroup in the News

Originally Published in Telemedicine Magazine 

By: Olivia Boyce and Christopher Adams

The Value of Telepsychiatry in the ED - Six Benefits to Cutting Psychiatric Boarding Through Telehealth

Hospitals throughout the nation are plagued with psychiatric patients boarding in their emergency departments (EDs). The wait times for psychiatric patients to see a psychiatrist for that evaluation can take hours or even days. A report of 300 ED directors found that 41% of EDs have a wait time of over two days to see a psychiatrist.[1]

One solution that is helping to reduce psychiatric boarding in EDs across the country is on-demand telepsychiatry.

“The goal of on-demand telepsychiatry evaluations is for the remote psychiatrist to decide on the most appropriate and least restrictive level of care,” says Dr. Jim Varrell, Medical Director of InSight Telepsychiatry, the largest private telepsychiatry company in the US.

“By having a psychiatrist available to do the assessment, on-demand telepsychiatry programs help hospital systems avoid inappropriate admissions, shorten length of stays and improve overall ED patient flow,” explains Dr. Varrell.

1. Shorten ED Wait Times 

According to Dr. Varrell, with on-demand telepsychiatry, psychiatric assessments are able to occur within about an hour of a request on average. Since psychiatric patients typically spend over 3 times longer in the ED than medical patients,[2] telepsychiatry’s timeliness means that psychiatric patients are able to move on to the next level of care much more quickly.

This improvement results in shortened wait times for all patients within the ED, and ultimately an increase in revenue for the hospital system.

2. Increase Hospital Revenue

A study done on the impacts of psychiatric boarding found that boarders prevent an average of 2.2 bed turnovers which results in a lost opportunity cost for the hospital of $2264 per psychiatric patient.[3] By implementing telepsychiatry and improving the rate of bed throughput, a hospital is ultimately able to increase revenue.

3. Reduce Inappropriate Commitments 

Another way telepsychiatry programs are adding value to hospital systems is by reducing costly inappropriate commitments.

South Seminole Hospital in Longwood, FL is an Orlando Health Facility that implemented a telepsychiatry program in November 2014. Through videoconferencing, South Seminole’s ED staff accesses a telepsychiatrist when they have difficult cases or when they need to determine whether an individual who came in under Florida’s civil commitment law, merits psychiatric hospitalization. According to the hospital’s data, during the first six months of the program, one third of the involuntary commitments assessed by telepsychiatrists were rescinded. [4]

“Telepsychiatry allows us to make sure that the psychiatric patients in our ED move on to the most appropriate treatment, whether that is hospitalization or community-based care quickly,” says Charles Webb Manager of the ED at South Seminole Hospital. “When patients don’t have to wait as long for care, they are able to get on a path to better health sooner.”

4. Improve Compliance with Joint Commission Standards

Access to timely care means that hospitals are more likely to be able to meet standards for patient care set by regulating bodies like The Joint Commission who advocate that patient boarding times not exceed 4 hours.

“When hospitals are able to reduce psychiatric boarding from say 14 hours to under 4, there are other financial benefits,” explains Dr. Varrell. “The average sitter for a psychiatric patient costs $15 per hour. By cutting 10 hours from the time a psychiatric patient waits for care, that’s $150 per patient saved on just sitter costs.”

5. Empower and Support Onsite Staff

At a more operational level, the implementation of a telepsychiatry program is reported to better empower onsite staff to handle psychiatric patients. For example, after a telepsychiatry program had been in place for several months at Chester County Hospital in Pennsylvania, the hospital saw an increase in their clearing and placing psychiatric patients without telepsychiatrybecause staff reported greater confidence in their abilities to assess difficult cases knowing that they had a specialist available for consult or assessment when needed.[5]

Dr. Varrell explains that this case study is an example of why collaboration between remote and onsite staff lends itself to the most effective telepsychiatry programs. “Telepsychiatrists are most effective when they establish a rapport and team-approach with the onsite staff. The remote psychiatrists benefits from onsite staff sharing difficult-to-collect information like odor or agitation in the waiting room while the onsite staff benefits from having the expertise of a team of psychiatrists who they know and trust on-call.”

6. Expand Psychiatric Capacities Within Hospitals and Beyond

Because telepsychiatrists are able to work from remote or home offices and don’t have to be in-person at the emergency department, it is much easier to staff difficult hours like weekends, nights and holidays.

Ultimately, establishing an ED telepsychiatry program can set up a health system to more effectively manage the psychiatric needs of an entire community or population. In addition to using telepsychiatrists within EDs, many systems are also expanding programs into other settings within the hospital and beyond.

“It’s important to design a telepsychiatry system with growth in mind from the beginning,” explains Dr. Varrell.

For example, hospitals are using telepsychiatry on their Med/Surg floors and on their inpatient units for weekend and overnight rounding.

Within communities, telepsychiatrists commonly serve community mental health centers, outpatient clinics, correctional facilities, primary care offices and other settings where it is difficult to staff and retain onsite physicians.

More creatively, newer direct-to-consumer models of telepsychiatry are gaining popularity as a convenient way to access services and follow-up care outside of a traditional setting and potentially from home or another private space. Some health systems and insurance companies are beginning to refer psychiatric patients leaving the hospital to in-home telehealth options that make them more likely to attend their follow up appointments and less likely to end back up in the hospital.

“Telepsychiatry can be challenging to implement because it’s a change and it requires the buy-in of many parties,” says Webb. “But ultimately, the return on investment is clear.”

Sources

[1] Schumacher Group. (2010) Emergency department challenges and trends. 2010 survey of hospital emergency department administrators.

[2,3] Nicks and Manthey. “The Impact of Psychiatric Patient Boarding in Emergency Departments.” Emergency Medical International. 2012.

[4] Orlando Health Telepsychiatry Data 2014-2015.

[5] Cuyler, Robert. Chester County Hospital Emergency Psychiatry Case Study, 2012.

Originally published on The Daily Item. 

By: Joe Sylvester

LEWISBURG — Evangelical Community Hospital patients who needed a psychiatric consultation in the past sometimes had to wait two or three days to talk to a psychiatrist.

Since February, the wait has been an average of 90 minutes but no longer than 4 hours, thanks to technology provided by a New Jersey company.

InSight, based in Marlton, N.J., provides telepsychiatry services via computer screen. Once contacted, the company can have a board-certified psychiatrist on screen within an hour or so. A hospital staff member wheels the screen, attached to a cart, to the patient, and the patient can talk to the psychiatrist in private. An on-screen camera allows the doctor to see the patient, said Hannah Richards, a registered nurse in Evangelical’s emergency department.

Telepsychiatry services for the Evangelical’s emergency department

When a patient with a psychiatric issue comes to the emergency room or is admitted to one of the floors, the hospital contacts InSight, which has a time limit of 4 hours to have a psychiatrist call back. The screen is brought to the patient for the consultation after the doctor comes on it, Richards said.

“We can do it both in the ER and upstairs on any patient floor,” said Christal Dixon, director of nursing specialty services at Evangelical.

She said the hospital has three screens for the service, which the hospital began implementing in January and started using in February. Now the services are used six or seven times a month, Dixon said.

While she wouldn’t reveal the cost, she said the flat fee is significantly less than the cost of the local services the hospital previously used. The hospital also pays a fee for each consultation.

“We used a service before, but it would take two to three days,” Dixon said.

She said the local service also wasn’t available for late-night or weekend consultations.

She and Richards said the hospital could always contact CMSU if a patient was a danger to himself, herself or others or needed immediate placement in a facility.

She and Evangelical spokeswoman Deanna Hollenbach said one problem is the shortage of psychiatrists in the Valley. Hollenbach said Evangelical, Geisinger Health System and other groups sponsored a community needs assessment in the region, and it found psychiatric services were lacking.

Dixon said InSight is certified and its psychiatrists credentialed to work in Pennsylvania. Its psychiatrists can see the patients’ medical records electronically before consulting with them and prescribing medications, if needed. Evangelical doctors can bounce suggestions off the psychiatrists in a followup call.

“This company has been doing this for over 18 years,” she said.

Richards said the telepsychiatrist also can do consultations with the patient and family members.

“I think it’s really beneficial,” Richards said. “It was difficult to treat a patient holistically. We have the medical part down but not the psychiatric.”

Richards said patients have made positive comments about the service.

We are proud that several members of the Regroup team, including Hossam M. Mahmoud, M.D., M.P.H., Omar Elhaj, M.D., and Naveen Kathuria, J.D., will contribute to this year’s conference theme, Revitalize Psychiatry: Disrupt, Include, Engage & Innovate, by presenting on four important areas in the field of psychiatry. Join them during the following times to learn about telepsychiatry, LGBT mental health, and refugee mental health and healthcare advocacy.

Regroup Telehealth is presenting at the APA Annual Meeting

Telepsychiatry: From Concept to Implementation

Date: Sunday, May 19

Time: 8:00 AM–9:30 AM

This session aims to focus on the practical components that facilitate and - at times - restrict the implementation of telepsychiatry services. Presenters will discuss three practical aspects of implementation, including regulatory complexities, steps for successful deployment of telepsychiatry services from the healthcare facility perspective, and opportunities and challenges facing clinicians practicing telepsychiatry.

Refugees, Immigrants and Asylum Seekers: Mental Health, Advocacy, and Human Rights

Date: Tuesday, May 21

Time: 10:00 AM–11:30 AM

This session will discuss different aspects of forced migration and its connection to mental health. Presenters will discuss a variety of elements related to this topic, including: forced migration and its contributing, perpetuating and mitigating factors, mental health sequelae of the trauma associated with the forced displacement and family separations, and diagnostic and clinical challenges that clinicians face when working with refugees, asylum seekers and other forcefully displaced populations.

LGBT Mental Health: Health Care, Innovation, and Advocacy

Date: Tuesday, May 21

Time: 3:00 PM–4:30 PM

This session discusses the different roles that mental health professionals play, as clinicians, healthcare innovators, and human rights advocates in advancing the mental health of the LGBT community. Presenters will highlight considerations when providing LGBT mental healthcare, the role of telepsychiatry as an approach to providing mental healthcare access to LGBT individuals, and the role mental health professionals play when LGBT refugees seek asylum in the United States.

Creating Impact at the District Branch Level: Lessons Learned From Illinois

Date: Wednesday, May 22

Time: 1:00 PM–2:30 PM EST

In this session, panelists will discuss the important roles of district branches and highlight the need to continue to expand such roles, coordinate efforts and share experiences to enhance their impact at the local level. They will focus on the experiences and lessons learned from the Illinois district branch, the Illinois Psychiatric Society (IPS). They will highlight past, present and planned initiatives by IPS in the areas of member engagement, mental health advocacy, and physician well-being.

For complete session descriptions, visit the APA’s Annual Meeting website.

"The winners each year are innovations that uniquely fill unmet needs, spark a competitive response in the marketplace, exceed market expectations, achieve financial success, and improve people’s lives."

Regroup Wins a Chicago Innovation Award

Every year, the Chicago Innovation Awards honors the region's "most innovative products, services and companies."

"The winners each year are innovations that uniquely fill unmet needs, spark a competitive response in the marketplace, exceed market expectations, achieve financial success, and improve people’s lives," the group says. "They emerge from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Most importantly, the Chicago Innovation Awards remind us that innovation is thriving in the Chicago region."

Meet this year's winners, including winners of the Social Innovation, Collaboration, Chicago Neighborhood Awards, Up-and-Comer and People's Choice awards.

Abbott

When it comes to infant nutrition, the benefits of breast milk are beyond dispute. But because not every mother can breast feed, Abbott Labs has succeeded in unlocking the potential of mother’s milk for ready-to-feed formula. Unlike other infant-nutrition formulas, Abbott’s Similac Pro-Advance and Pro-Sensitive formulas contain a prebiotic plant fiber that beneficially nourishes bacteria already in an infant’s bowels. Prebiotics are different but similar to the more familiar probiotics, which introduce good bacteria into the gut. Prebiotics fertilize good bacteria that’s already present. Infant-nutrition formulas all contain an ingredient known in pediatric circles as a Human Milk Oligosaccharide, or HMO, the third most-abundant ingredient in breast milk after fat and carbohydrates. HMOs circulate throughout the infant’s body, and strengthen the baby’s immune system to be more like the breastfed infant’s. Abbott replicated HMOs so that babies who drink formula can benefit from them. Similac Pro-Advance and Pro-Sensitive are the only formulas available with an added HMO that is bio-structurally identical to the HMO found in mother's milk, and it is produced in a similar way to the way some vitamins are made.

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab

Integrating research with clinical care is of critical importance, and long overdue. Currently, 86% of scientific discoveries never make it out of the lab. That’s countless approaches, treatments and even potential cures that could speed recovery or save lives, but are never fully or effectively developed. The Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (renamed from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago in 2017) is integrating science with intention to close this gap and has been explicitly designed to enable translation of research into care faster. The $550 million, 1.2-million-square-foot Shirley Ryan is the first-ever "translational" research hospital in which clinicians, scientists, innovators and technologists work together in the same space, 24/7, surrounding patients, discovering new approaches and applying (or "translating") research real time. The goal: better, faster outcomes for patients.

Fooda

A Fooda Food Hall replaces all the stations in a traditional cafeteria with a line-up of top-rated local guest restaurants that changes every day, bringing people a wide variety of high-quality meal options at work. The food cost the same, or less than it would in the restaurants. The Food Hall model is a win-win-win solution for 1) Restaurants, who love the added revenue at lunch and the opportunity to get in front of thousands of new people – many of whom will visit the restaurant’s brick and mortar location at night and on the weekends; 2) Employees in the cafeteria’s building, who love supporting local businesses while having an authentic dining experience (rather than food made from the same kitchen, using the same bulk ingredients, and following the same corporate recipes); and 3) The buildings and companies that own the cafeterias, whose costs are reduced by as much as 30%, compared to what they previously experienced from the legacy cafeteria model. While Fooda is disrupting the cafeteria space, staples like made-to-order grill programs, salad bars, delis, grab-and-go snacks, espresso and beverages remain. Food Halls in Chicago can be found in the corporate headquarters of Northern Trust, Hyatt, and 540 West Madison (formerly known as Bank of America Plaza).

Reverb.com

Reverb.com is the online marketplace to buy, sell and learn about new, used, and vintage music gear. Since launching in 2013, Reverb.com has grown into the world’s most popular music gear website, with more than 10 million musicians and music lovers visiting the website each month. Built by and for musicians, the marketplace makes it easy for anyone — from beginner musicians, mom-and-pop shops, and boutique builders to collectors, large retailers, and rock stars — to connect over the perfect piece of music gear.

Simple Mills

Simple Mills Almond Flour Crackers and Sprouted Seed Crackers contain no grain, gluten, soy, GMOs, or artificial flavors or fillers. For the rapidly growing number of consumers who follow diets adhering to these new “clean food” standards, these products fill a critical void. All of the company’s products are made with simple, whole-food, nutrient-dense ingredients and share the same healthy and “free from” benefits without sacrificing taste and texture, in many cases providing the only viable option for consumers who have restricted diets either by choice or necessity.

Livongo

Livongo has a vision of empowering all people with chronic conditions to live better and healthier lives. We are redesigning chronic condition management, starting with diabetes, by driving behavior change through the combination of consumer health technology, personalized recommendations, and real-time support at the point of impact. Powered by advanced analytics, we create personalized experiences for our members so they receive the right information, tools, and support, at the right time. Our approach is leading to better financial and clinical outcomes while creating a better experience for all people with chronic conditions and their care team of family, friends, and medical professionals.

Valent BioSciences

The traditional way to control adult mosquitoes is to blanket a wide area with a broad spectrum insecticide, but to do so in the evening, when mosquitoes are most active, and beneficial insects such as bees and butterflies are not. Spreading insecticides that target adult mosquitoes during evening hours keeps the insecticide floating in the air close to the ground where mosquitoes live. Zika mosquitoes, however, are active during daylight hours along with bees and other beneficial insects. Valent BioSciences’ VectoBac larvicide, coupled with the company’s innovative wide area larvicide spray technology platform, meets this challenge by delivering a highly targeted biorational insecticide directly into the tiny, hard-to-reach volumes of water where these mosquitoes breed and larvae grow.

150 N. Riverside

150 North Riverside is a 54-story, Class A+ office tower with approximately 1.23 million square feet of rentable space. The building, designed by architect Goettsch Partners, occupies less than 25 percent of its two-acre site and utilizes a combination of unique design methodologies, material selections and technology infrastructure which, in combination, were able to overcome the physical limitations of one of Chicago’s most technically challenging sites. The building structure’s core-supported design results in the 750-foot tower resting atop a base that is merely 38 feet wide. This narrow building footprint allows for more than 75 percent of the property to be unenclosed outdoor space, vastly improving the pedestrian experience on and surrounding the site. The park and plaza have provided over 1,000 lineal feet of seating, multiple assembly/event spaces, and 360 feet of riverwalk frontage, which has already become one of the most populated circulation paths for downtown commuters.

Narrative Science

Despite investing significant resources in data and analytics, organizations struggle to see engagement and adoption of Business Intelligence platforms due to their complexity and the time required to interpret the data. Enter, Narratives for Business Intelligence, a suite of Advanced Natural Language Generation (Advanced NLG) extensions for the world’s leading BI and analytics platforms, including Qlik, Microsoft, Tableau, MicroStrategy and Sisense. Natural language extensions from Narrative Science can also be natively embedded into any proprietary BI or open source visualization platform, dynamically explaining insights in plain English and surfacing relationships not obvious in charts, graphs, or tables.

SpotHero

After building an industry-leading parking marketplace via website and app, SpotHero introduced HeroConnect, a parking mobility platform in 2017, encompassing an open API, SDK and embeddable web widget tools. The HeroConnect Platform provides third parties the development tools necessary to seamlessly offer transactional parking functionality in their native platforms. This allows the broader transportation industry, from automakers to car rental, navigation and data companies, to put SpotHero in their cars, equipment and apps. The innovation serves the mission of a painless, holistic urban mobility ecosystem by connecting automotive and related technology with the broadest network of parking supply in North America. Amid the next wave of vehicle innovation for the drivers of tomorrow, it eliminates hurdles and improves the experience of every journey.

SOCIAL INNOVATION AWARD WINNER

Regroup Telehealth

Regroup Therapy is pioneering Telepsychiatry-as-a-Service across the US. Many of us know that 1 in 5 members of the US population will require access to mental health services each year. What often is not as well understood until care is needed is the deep scarcity of mental health clinicians. 55% of US counties don’t have a single mental health clinician. With an innovative telepsych service platform, Regroup Therapy more efficiently distributes mental health professionals; providing help where the need is greatest.

COLLABORATION AWARD WINNER

Benefit Chicago

Benefit Chicago is aiming to raise and invest $100 million in patient, flexible, and risk-tolerant capital, in for-profit and nonprofit social enterprises throughout the region, that are working to build wealth, create jobs, and enhance job readiness. Individuals, corporations, and philanthropies, can support our efforts by investing in our community investment notes.

CHICAGO NEIGHBORHOOD AWARDS

Oak Street Health

Oak Street Health is a network of primary care centers for adults on Medicare in ‘healthcare deserts.’ We provide an entirely different model of care that is based on value for our patients instead of volume of services. Our centers are located where this is little or no quality healthcare, and we provide care that is personal, spending more than twice as long with our patients. We also hold ourselves accountable for our patients’ health, taking on the risks and costs of their care and providing every patient with the same great care. Most importantly, we are making an impact, providing quality care while reducing hospitals stays and providing an experience like no other. We are redefining healthcare as it should be.

Boombox

Boombox is Chicago's first pop-up storefront constructed from an upcycled shipping container available for a variety of retail, cultural, community, and marketing experiences. Boombox entrepreneurs innovate at the small scale through this unique space to understand new audiences, realize new markets, and activate their community. Our locations anchor neighborhood commercial corridors across Chicago and can create a comprehensive social enterprise to transform vacant urban spaces as part of redeveloping neighborhood innovation districts. Vacant sites from land to public plazas to transit stations can be repurposed into markets that allow Boombox to bridge the gap between "startup and storefront" for small business in Chicago.

WINGS Program

The Safe House at WINGS Metro, along with WINGS suburban shelter, are the only ones in the state of Illinois to house male and transgender victims of domestic violence who also are provided with private bathrooms. WINGS has a unique approach to assisting victims of domestic violence which is its key to success. Other organizations offer counseling and education services only; some provide emergency shelter or transitional housing only; WINGS is the only domestic violence provider to assist survivors at all level of services and needs.

UP-AND-COMER AWARD WINNERS 

BallotReady

BallotReady creates datasets and digital tools to inform voters on their entire ballot, every election. Last fall, millions of voters entered the voting booth prepared to vote for president and unprepared for the rest of their ballot. As a result, voters guessed, left blanks, or stayed home altogether. BallotReady believes elected officials matter - all the way down the ballot. We build products to engage voters at every level of government, powered by the comprehensive and complete dataset to local elections.

Georama

Georama’s live mobile video insights platform enables organizations to gather or provide insights from anywhere in the world in real-time. Using Georama's proprietary software, broadcasters can share their perspective LIVE from smartphones or smart glasses in reliable HD video while being completely mobile indoors and outdoors, even in poor network conditions. Viewers can watch on any device and interact with broadcasters in real-time to control the experience. Georama's B2B SaaS platform provides a complete solution for customer insights and location insights, with use-case specific features and workflows, along with automation and analytics powered by AI. Georama's customer insights solution enables brands and agencies to generate deeper in-the-moment insights globally for areas including customer experience, shopper insights, and ethnography, in a fraction of the time and money. Georama's location insights solution enables education, hospitality, and industrial organizations to give their customers, partners, or internal stakeholders a live and personalized virtual tour of any location when a physical visit is not feasible.

NowPow

NowPow, a play on knowledge is power, is a women-owned and led technology company based on Chicago’s south side. The technology empowers care professionals to make highly matched social referrals, communicate with patients and service providers, and track referral outcomes. The multi-sided platform uniquely connects both sides of the referral process—“senders” and “receivers”—to better address patients’ social determinants of health and improve care transitions across networks.

Tovala

In 2015, David Rabie and Bryan Wilcox founded Tovala on a simple premise; busy people want an effortless way to eat delicious, healthy home-cooked meals. By combining an internet-connected steam oven with meals prepared by world-class chefs, dinner is as easy as scanning a barcode. Based in Chicago, IL, Tovala won the New Venture Challenge at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in May 2015, completed Y Combinator in March 2016, and began shipping across the U.S. in May 2017. At launch, The Wall Street Journal said: "Tovala turns out super-fast, consistent restaurant-quality meals, making it the first connected kitchen device with real mass appeal.

Chowly

Chowly integrates Restaurant Aggregator (UberEats, Eat24, etc.) orders into the restaurant’s current point of sale system so staff members don’t waste time manually entering them. Chowly lowers staffing costs by eliminating the need for staff to do data entry. Eliminating this need allows restaurants to add on as many platforms as they wish increasing their net sales. Our automated solution vastly decreases errors as orders are always inputted correctly and quickly.

PhysIQ

PhysIQ VitaLink for Clinical Trials is a specialized patient monitoring solution that applies FDA-cleared machine learning analytics to sensor-derived physiological data to transform continuous heart rate, respiration rate, activity, etc into personalized patient insight. Their scalable, device agnostic, CFR Part 11-compliant cloud based platform is transforming how pharma and medical device companies leverage continuous real world data to validate the safety and efficacy of their products. PhysIQ is deploying, internationally, its one-of-a-kind platform to collect and analyze data to support clinical trials across multiple therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular health, pain, neurocognitive disease, and oncology. Recently recognized as one of the most disruptive companies in the clinical trials space, physIQ is working with the biggest names in the biopharma and medical device industries.

ExplORer Surgical

ExplORer is an interactive playbook for the operating room and interventional suite that reduces disruptions and wasted disposables by improving team communication. ExplORer also provides real-time performance and scheduling data to administrators to enhance quality of care and efficiency. Teams use the software to coordinate their activities while managing their tools and supplies in a way never before possible. The result is optimal teamwork, increased efficiency, and high performance.

Tock

Tock is a comprehensive platform built to fundamentally change the way restaurants think about and run their business. This includes the industry's first cloud-based reservation, guest, and table management system for restaurants, wineries, and other culinary experiences across the globe. Today, Tock has seated millions of guests, processed over $210M in prepaid reservations, and has built the definitive platform for discovering the best culinary experiences around the world - From Alinea, Milk Room, and Smyth and the Loyalist here in Chicago, to Eleven Madison Park, The French Laundry, The Fat Duck, Atelier Crenn, and hundreds more across the world.

Pearachute

Pearachute is a monthly membership club that makes it easy for parents and caregivers to discover, book, and drop into the best kids’ activities in your city. We create opportunities to bring families together in a way they never could before. Now dads can drop into basketball classes with their kids and moms can book parent/child coding classes–all at the touch of a button, all for one affordable monthly rate.

The LISA App

The beauty industry is a 75 billion dollar machine where the average service provider, who we call Artists, earns a poverty wage of 22K per year. LISA has created a B2B open-marketplace infrastructure to help the Artist community work entrepreneurially on their own terms. Corporations are spending a fortune recruiting, hiring and training top talent. LISA is able to assist these corporations with our 'next generation perk suite'. These companies love not only the services, but, the easy to use technology for their employees, allowing them to schedule, book and pay directly in The LISA App - saving the HR/ Benefit Directors 2-3 hours per week in maintenance. Companies like GrubHub, Echo, Enova, BBB, @properties, 1871, Ogilvy, SpotHero to name a few, are among the forward thinking companies that realize LISA does not just provide a ‘beauty service’ to their employees, but a smart and savvy technology they can be proud to share with their team.

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD WINNER

Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy

IN2 Steve and Jamie Chen Center for Innovation and Inquiry at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) is Illinois' first secondary education innovation center. In true entrepreneurial spirit, this IMSA startup raised $2M in private funds to renovate 6,400 square feet and formally opened in 2017. IN2@IMSA nurtures the next generation of discoverers, creators and thinkers through STEM entrepreneurship and maker space education in a space that reflects the evolving collaborative, cross-sector, and high-tech nature of innovation. IN2@IMSA connects talented Illinois students to Chicago-area startups and mentors while providing a workspace for solution-based explorations and collaborations with corporations, external students and teachers. IN2 is guided by IMSA’s foundational philosophy of equity and excellence underpinning its mission to ignite and nurture creative, ethical, scientific minds than advance the human condition.

Originally featured in NBC Chicago

Launching a Telebehavioral Health Strategy: Addressing Gaps in Care and Increasing Access to Behavioral Health Services

Geoffrey Boyce, Chief Executive Officer of InSight Telepsychiatry, spoke at the 11^th Annual mHealth and Telehealth World Summit put on by World Congress on Thursday, August 1. He co-presented alongside Lan Chi “Krysti” Vo, MD, the Medical Director of Telehealth, Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Services of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Attendees included c-suite, VPs and directors of telehealth/telemedicine, virtual care, digital health, innovation, medical informatics and connected health organizations.

Boyce and Vo spoke about building and maintaining a telebehavioral health program using two distinct models. Here are the key takeaways from this presentation.

Academic Medical Center Example: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, founded in 1855, is the nation’s first hospital for children. When they realized they had an increasing need for mental health services, they decided to leverage internal resources to meet these needs.

They utilize telepsychiatry in collaborative care models with aims to increase behavioral health access, provide additional support to behavioral health clinicians and provide education and training to pediatricians to increase their comfortability with managing behavioral health needs. With the collaborative care approach, they are able to leverage their own resources, including pediatricians, clinical social workers and psychologists, to provide mental health treatment to consumers. In this model, an individual meets with the telepsychiatry provider and pediatrician or therapist.

In addition to providing services internally with telepsychiatry, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (DCAPBS) also plans to partner with various community entities to use telebehavioral health to meet the mental health needs of the community.

Outsourced Provider Example: InSight Telepsychiatry

InSight Telepsychiatry, a private telepsychiatry provider organization with 20 years of experience, partners with organizations such as hospitals, health systems, outpatient facilities, community mental health programs and more to provide access to psychiatrists and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners.

While, implementing a telebehavioral health program with outside providers is often thought of as a “band-aid” for the immediate needs of an organization to backfill gaps and provide temporary coverage, InSight stresses that telepsychiatry needs to be seen as a long-term solution. With telepsychiatry, organizations can add more resources in the longer-term, use existing resources more effectively, improve efficacy of existing programs, develop new programs, facilitate behavioral health integration and build and enhance relationships.

Telepsychiatry enhances relationships with the in-house team, partners, fellow community agencies and consumers. Since telepsychiatry can be used across a wide variety of sites and settings, it also serves to connect communities. Connected community models create a comprehensive, sustainable and multi-faceted behavioral health strategy that improves treatment access at key entry points and across all levels of care.

Key Considerations for Implementing and Launching a Program

Before implementing and launching a program through either model, there are several key considerations. This includes, but is not limited to, reimbursement, licensure and credentialing, training and designing workflows. It is important to keep in mind that reimbursement varies by location and by state for Medicare, Medicaid and private payer coverage. When it comes to licensure, providers should be licensed in the state where the consumer is located and the licensure process also varies from state-to-state. There is often bureaucracy hindering the ability for providers to be credentialed at multiple sites in a timely manner so it is important for organizations to take into account how long the process takes.

Another consideration is how to train both onsite and remote team members. Onsite team members should know how to talk about telepsychiatry with consumers and how to communicate effectively with a remote provider. It is also important to consider who should be in the room with the individual and assist with the session, particularly with children. Organizations also need a telepsychiatry presenter to take vitals, set up rooms before sessions and connect to the telepsychiatry provider.

Remote providers need to know best practices at the organization where they are providing services such as where to make referrals, nuances of prescribing and how they are going to stay up to date with organizational changes and updates.

To stay up to date on telebehavioral health strategy, organizations such as the American Telemedicine Association, OPEN MINDS, Telehealth Resource Centers and the Center for Connected Health Policy are great resources.