Would you get better care if your doctors collaborated? A CT resident created a platform to make it happen

Hartford Courant – Monday, December 16, 2024
By Alison Cross

Michael Hermus is on a mission to revolutionize the mental health care industry.

This month, the Westport resident launched Halespring, a “potentially game-changing” platform designed to “empower the outpatient provider ecosystem” by streamlining communication tools on one HIPAA-compliant site, according to Hermus.

Think Facebook groups, Slack channels and LinkedIn for therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and more — all on one platform.

After spending his entire career as a software entrepreneur, Hermus said he decided to develop Halespring after his own family’s experience with mental health.

When Hermus was faced with navigating his child’s complex mental health challenges, Hermus said he saw a problem: the multiple providers who were responsible for his child’s care needed to communicate with each other, but they were not.

“When you’re seeking and receiving mental health treatment that is anything beyond the very basic (level), there are always multiple providers involved. There are, in many cases, three or four or five different people, some of which are involved continuously, some of which jump in and out … and it’s very difficult to coordinate communication between all these parties,” Hermus said.

Hermus explained that health privacy laws require providers to communicate over secure platforms. Because of this, Hermus said providers are left with synchronous communication methods like phone or video calls, which can be hard to schedule when providers have asynchronous hours and caseloads.

“What happens is communication suffers, information gets lost, and as a result, care suffers,” Hermus said. “Care is not as good as it could be because communication is not flowing between all these providers and ultimately, the patient suffers and outcomes are less optimal than they could be.”

Hermus is hopeful Halespring can change that.

“We believe (that) through better provider communication and collaboration, we can improve patient outcomes,” Hermus said. “We want people to be better, feel better and do better. And ultimately, we believe this platform can help achieve that.”

Approximately 59.3 million adults in the U.S. — nearly a quarter of the adult population — are living with a behavioral, emotional or mental health disorder, according to the most recent estimates from the National Institute of Mental Health. For adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18, the rate of mental disorders is nearly 50%.

But, according to the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, in 2024 just 1.02 million people served as providers in America’s behavioral health workforce.

Dr. Frank Appah Jr., a psychiatrist who runs a private practice based in Westport, serves as the lead clinical advisor for Halespring.

Appah explained that when it comes to care, collaboration is key.

“For every client that I have, I would like to speak to their social worker, the nutritionist, the primary care, the psychologist,” Appah said. “You cannot affect health without collaborating.”

But right now, Appah said collaboration is stymied by outdated communication channels.

“Either you call or email and it’s not very efficient in this day of social media and connectivity,” Appah said. “What the (Halespring) platform hopes to bring is a space where we can actually collaborate. …The innovation that we see in social media, we’re applying this now to mental health care.”

Appah said Halespring’s HIPAA-compliant patient “rooms” allow teams of providers to ask questions, share updates, schedule meetings and send treatment plans so each practitioner involved in the care of a single patient is instantly on the same page.

“Instead of me having to reach out separately in an email and try to corral people together, we can do this in one space,” Appah said. “(Having chat) rooms dedicated to a patient’s care, that to me is huge.”

Appah said the streamlined collaboration “invariably leads to better outcomes” for patients and providers.

“Patients need to know that their providers are in communication,” Appah said. “They need to know that their care is integrated.”

Appah said Halespring’s professional discussion groups and networking features provide opportunities for practitioners to get the support they also need.

“Particularly for those in private practice, being a mental health provider, it’s not easy doing it alone,” Appah said. “We need to be able to support each other. We need to form communities. … (This) platform builds a community of providers where we can share information, we can ask (questions), we can consult.”

“You don’t want to be isolated,” Appah added. “We need to come together, we need to brainstorm.”

Hermus said one of Halespring’s most powerful features is its referral system.

Hermus explained that provider-to-provider referrals serve as the “lifeblood of” practitioner caseloads, but the current system is inefficient. Instead of relying on email blasts or calling colleagues to see who may be a good fit for their patient, Hermus said providers can input the details of their patient’s case and filter through matching professional profiles in Halespring’s provider database that validates licenses and credentials.

“They can get alerts on referrals, they can search referrals based on different criteria. And then if they’re interested, they can create a secure HIPAA-compliant channel between one provider or another to discuss the case and figure out if the fit is there,” Hermus said.

Once enough providers join the platform, Hermus said Halespring will also launch services for patients. Eventually, individuals and families will be able to search a database of providers and programs on their own, or send out a “request for care” so providers can see if their expertise lines up with the patient’s needs.

Hermus said providers can either sign up for a free basic account or unlock advanced features by subscribing to one of Halespring’s membership plans that range from around $20 to $40 a month. Plans for small group practices are also available for $100 a month.

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