Coordination of Services for People With Serious Mental Illness and General Medical Conditions
Imagine trying to navigate a maze where your physical health, your mental health, and your social needs (like feelings of loneliness) are all in different corners. And none of the maps you’ve been given match what you see in front of you. That’s what life feels like for many people living with serious mental illness (SMI) in rural areas.
Karen Fortuna, Chief Science Officer of My AI Companion, was one of a group of researchers who looked at how healthcare providers in New England try to cover gaps in the health care provided to SMI individuals in rural areas. They focused on providers in two states with two different approaches to financing, organizing, and integrating Medicaid supported community mental health services.
It turns out that doctors and social workers are working hard to build bridges across services. Some providers even noted that they felt they were substituting for family members, including advocacy and basic support roles, when patients lacked adequate social networks. But when the structural systems work against them, there isn’t much they can do. For example, while mobile phones can help to manage communication, they can also be hampered by poor cell service and weak internet connections in rural settings.
Even the best medical services, with integrated shared electronic record systems across a variety of medical providers, can’t help when the population is lacking basic social factors (like economic resources and a stable place to live). At the end of the day, you can have the most coordinated medical team in the world, but if a patient doesn’t have a way to get to the clinic or a safe place to sleep and store/take their medication, the doctor can only do so much.
My AI Companion was designed with the needs of rural patients in mind. With no office to visit, and no fancy app to run in the background, all you need is the bandwidth for a phone call or to receive a text, and you can speak to your companion at any time, day or night.
