NeuroFlow, a behavioral health tech company, has teamed up with ChristianaCare to support maternal mental health.
Through NeuroFlow’s platform, pregnant and postpartum patients will be screened for a variety of mental health conditions. The types of screenings and their cadence will be at the discretion of ChristianaCare. Patients will also have the option to receive NeuroFlow’s personalized educational content on a wide range of topics. The goal is to help ChristianaCare stratify risks and address them.
“No matter how well staffed they are, no one has the resources to take care of everyone endorsing a mental health problem,” Tom Zaubler, M.D., chief behavioral health officer at NeuroFlow, told Fierce Healthcare.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends screening for depression and anxiety across prenatal, pregnancy and postpartum visits. Still, 75% of pregnant people affected by mental health symptoms don’t get care. Having depression or anxiety during pregnancy can affect a number of health outcomes for the mom and the baby, including developmental challenges. Only three states—California, West Virginia and Florida—mandate that OB providers screen, including during pregnancy, and link screening with state support services.
ChristianaCare, a Delaware-based health system, delivers more than 6,000 babies annually. NeuroFlow aims to assist the organization in remotely supporting patients between appointments and proactively identifying who needs help. The program is available at no cost to patients.
“That way, it’s not waiting for women to go to their OB-GYN appointments and evaluate them in the office,” Zaubler explained. “There can be evaluations in between, and there can be content provided to patients between those appointments.”
To start, NeuroFlow will be available to patients across 15 ChristianaCare OB-GYN clinics, with hopes to expand to its hospitals and its multidisciplinary Center for Women’s Emotional Wellness.
Apart from the standardized screening tools NeuroFlow can deploy, it also offers stress, sleep and mood trackers. These are known as ecological momentary assessments, Zaubler said, offering real-time snapshots of how a person is feeling. “Sometimes those concerns can be fleeting, but they need to be addressed and caught in a timely fashion,” Zaubler said.
Safety protocols are also built into the collaboration for higher-acuity needs. For anyone presenting safety risks, the appropriate clinical team at ChristianaCare will immediately be notified, and patients will be recommended emergency resources or referred to a specialist. NeuroFlow will also follow up with a call to the patient for a suicide safety assessment.
NeuroFlow offers a variety of other tools, including a suite of analytics products to help payers and providers understand population risk. It is already helping screen for maternal mental health with partners like Intermountain Health.