Research and Development to Improve Rural Mental Health Care

IconoPsych Care LLC, is a Missouri-based company that seeks to improve the efficiency and quality of mental health services in underserved rural communities. IconoPsychs strategy is to fill an important niche that exists due to the current high-cost method of mental health services in rural communities. In common practice today, mental health professionals spend an estimated 40 precent of their time writing patient data for medical compliance. Due to the paper-based file system that most mental health care providers utilize, much of this clerical burden is repetitive and inefficient. In addition, many mental health professionals find the paper-based filing system difficult to navigate making the accessibility of the information highly questionable. Adding to the inefficiency of the current medical record system, many rural communities are forced to pay high costs to pay mental health professionals to travel to their local clinics. Common practice is to pay psychiatrists travel expenses to drive from urban centers to outlying rural hospitals and mental health care service clinics. This structure raises the costs of providing rural mental health services and decreases the number of hours that doctors are available on-site due to commuting hours. IconoPsych has developed an SBIR Project that explores the research and technical needs necessary to lay the foundation for future product development activities. IconoPsych is exploring the creation of two innovative software and communication technologies: 1. Icon-based electronic medical record software for mental health providers 2. Tele-psychiatry portals to serve high need communities that currently lack quality mental health services