How are organizations making mental healthcare accessible despite the current provider shortage? Supportiv’s CEO spoke at the Behavioral Health and Well-Being Summit, organized by Validation Institute and ABHW, about key takeaways from Supportiv’s success.

Among other points, the panel touched on the necessity (and difficulty) of providing consumers with immediate, on-demand access to care, especially during a time of escalating and rapidly-shifting consumer needs.

View the full panel discussion on YouTube, here.

Leading up to the panel, CEO Helena Plater-Zyberk also shared her lived experience with the value of an evolving approach to consumer wellbeing (read the full “Fast Five” Q&A here).

One key takeaway comes from Plater-Zyberk’s response to the question: How can health care stakeholders can bring care closer to consumers/patients?

“Health care stakeholders have a bad habit of immediately medicalizing everything. As a patient, finding out that my diagnosis is a torn ligament or clinical depression just isn’t that helpful. A label doesn’t change how I feel.

“Consumer-patients want care providers to speak in the real-world language of the pain they’re feeling–physically or emotionally. They want providers to listen to the needs they express. For example, the health distress I’m in is affecting my livelihood and causing disruption in my closest relationships. I need to regain function, regardless of my diagnosis. How do we craft a plan to do that?

Healthcare stakeholders truly have the opportunity to transform care by attending and reacting to the actual expressed needs of patients and consumers.”