With an eye on the rising need for mental health services, healthtech company Limbic has launched a suite of new products.

Limbic Self-Care, Limbic Care and Limbic Prevent are designed to help clinicians by using conversational AI to provide end-to-end support at different points of patients’ treatment pathways.

Clinicians can start with Limbic Self-Care which provides instant CBT support to patients while they are waiting for treatment. The product checks in with patients 24/7 with evidence-based digital therapy and uses collected data to create a clinical profile of the patient. 

The product transitions to Limbic Care once a patient is assigned a therapist. Limbic Care provides assigned therapists with insights to accelerate diagnosis and treatment, facilitates remote monitoring and provides patients with personalized tips in-between sessions as coached by patients’ therapists. 

Following treatment, the platform moves to Limbic Prevent, which offers patients personalised coping strategies designed by their therapists. The aim is to mitigate the risk of relapse, which affects more than half of mental health patients. 

Clinical Leads with backgrounds in the NHS experience and a panel of patient representatives weighed in on the product development. 

Four NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services will be using the Limbic products through partnership with Vita Health Group. 

WHY IT MATTERS

Around 8.5 million adults in the U.K. will need mental health support due to the pandemic, according to the Centre for Mental Health.

As demand grows for mental health services, so does concern regarding the number of mental health staff available to meet the growing need.

According to Dr Ross Harper, cofounder and CEO of Limbic, the new platform aims to tackle this challenge by increasing service capacity and enhancing care.

“We are only just beginning to see the ramifications of the pandemic on mental health services. We also know there’s a fundamental supply and demand mismatch in mental healthcare, with the number of patients vastly in excess of service capacity. Technology must help to bridge this gap,” Harper said.

“However, mental health is fundamentally a human discipline, and every patient’s experience is unique. Digital products must therefore focus on supporting clinicians and getting the most out of them, rather than seek to replace them.”

THE LARGER TREND

Across the board, organizations are stepping up to address growing demand for mental health services. 

The American Board of Telehealth recently developed a new virtual behavioral telehealth certification program in response to growing behavioral health needs during the pandemic. Now open for registration, the program is designed for a range of healthcare professionals, including psychiatrists, social workers, nurses and prevention specialists.

Startups including Talkspace, Kip and Lyra Health have also been making strides. 

The National Institutes of Health recently awarded Talkspace, a teletherapy platform, $7 million in grant funding to research patients’ experiences with digital mental health services.

Modern Health recently acquired digital mental health startup Kip and closed a $74 million Series D funding round, while Lyra Health closed a $187 million Series E funding round.