May 2023 • PharmaTimes Magazine • 32-33
// MENTAL HEALTH //
A new flame
In a rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, digitisation can transform pharma’s quest to improve mental health outcomes
Britain is facing a mental health emergency and new solutions must ignite a new era of care. Waiting lists for treatment continue to grow as the NHS struggles to cope with the amount of people seeking support, with nearly a quarter of people waiting more than 12 weeks to receive care due to the shortage of mental health professionals.
The digitisation of treatment and support pathways, however, offer health services and the wider industry, including pharmaceutical stakeholders, a viable way to widen access to good quality mental health care, whilst also increasing the impact of treatments for patients.
Digital treatment modalities incorporating online therapies, mobile apps and wearable devices are gaining wider recognition in the UK as a forward-thinking treatment option – with online digital treatment methods recently gaining approval by NICE to be used for conditions such as PTSD, anxiety and depression to help over 40,000 people nationally.
The potential for digital health products (DHPs) to transform care delivery is enormous. Therein lies a major opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to partner with healthcare providers and patient associations to create personalised, integrated treatments or support mechanisms that boost outcomes, improve medicine adherence, and add real-world value to patients.
Proposition for patients
DHPs enhance the value proposition of traditional therapeutics for patients, positively impacting mental health outcomes through increased patient engagement and adherence as well as reducing NHS waiting times for treatment, as patients are able to use these tools without needing a clinician present.
For example, digital tools that send phone alerts or notifications to patients as a reminder to take their medications can be pivotal in increasing adherence rates – a vital requirement for treatment efficacy.
DHPs also have more to offer than just notification reminders. Digital tools such as COMPASS – launched in partnership with King’s College London and digital health platform Avegen – an online cognitive behavioural therapy platform for managing depression and anxiety among people with long-term physical health conditions. This is a population group that have been found to have increased risk of mental health conditions.
These DHPs use a patient-facing app alongside a secure portal to support the clinician. By providing digital tools that allow patients to login according to a time and place that suits them, patients are more likely to fully engage with their treatment.
DHPs can also offer real-time monitoring and personalised feedback, ensuring that patients are treated effectively. Digital interventions are beneficial to patients in whatever capacity they are using them – so can also be used to supplement more complex care needs, or as a wait-list intervention.
‘The potential for digital health products to transform care delivery is enormous. Therein lies a major opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to partner with healthcare providers’
Driving down treatment costs
With the NHS under increasing financial pressure, ICBs are facing up to the enormous challenge of attempting to drive down spending while improving the quality of care. For pharma companies, this means that the priority is providing low-cost, high-impact solutions. Indeed, this is particularly true when it comes to mental health.
DHPs offer a way to open up mental health treatments to more patients at any one time whilst also creating a way of unlocking both cost and time savings.
Therapeutic methods such as digital CBT and mindfulness offer a way to move people off NHS waiting lists and into treatment, and also reduces the average number of face-to-face appointments needed – taking pressures off resource-constrained GPs and community mental health services.
More specific digital therapies can also be catered , such as a prenatal anxiety support tool for expectant mothers enables patients to access remote treatment options as frequently as they need. Again this will also drive down the number of in-person appointments needed.
Distinction for pharma companies
Integrating digital tools into their value proposition is an opportunity to provide a comprehensive and multi-modal approach to mental health care.
They are also fundamental in terms of helping forward-thinking pharma companies differentiate themselves as pioneers and improving patient outcomes in a competitive, fast-moving market.
Digital devices offer an opportunity to move away from the traditional face-to-face appointment model, instead launching a 360-degree approach that can use digital elements such as apps, wearables, VR and AI to enhance effectiveness, adherence and patient experience of traditional treatments.
For example, an app designed to treat individuals experiencing paranoia is being developed by King’s College London in partnership with Avegen. The app, called STOP, uses videos developed using cognitive bias modification techniques to support those struggling with symptoms of paranoia.
By incorporating an innovative technology that centres on patient-first, value-based care, the STOP feasibility study has shown improvements in symptoms of paranoia and reduction in patients experiencing anxious and depressed mood.
Digitisation that is tailored to provide individualised support to patients can help alleviate some of the burden being placed on the NHS by creating mental health care structures that help supplement in-person appointments – clearing up waiting lists and providing holistic mental health care.
DHPs are allowing us to rethink the way we conceptualise mental health treatment – rather than sporadic, in-person appointments, pharma companies can launch solutions that allow for more comprehensive, patient-centred approaches to treating patients.
Dr Nayan Kalnad is CEO at Avegen Health. Go to avegenhealth.com
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