“Now is the time to lean in”

Five Takeaways from the HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition Behavioral Health Pre-Conference Forum

By: Meadows Institute News
From left: Meadows Institute Chief Policy Officer John Snook, Meadows Institute Chief Innovation Officer Kacie Kelly, Northwestern University psychiatrist Dr. Lisa Rosenthal, and NeuroFlow CEO Chris Molaro

Key leaders from the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute were on hand in Las Vegas this week for a behavioral health forum designed to delve into the latest innovations and best practices driving scalable, high-quality behavioral health care.

Kicking off the 2025 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition, the March 3 event, organized by Meadows Institute senior fellow Solome Tibebu, founder and CEO of Behavioral Health Tech, brought together a diverse audience of clinical experts, payers and digital health entrepreneurs from across the behavioral health ecosystem to explore how technology is transforming the behavioral health landscape.

Highlights from the forum included a Meadows Institute-led panel on measurement-informed care, a topic that generated a lot of buzz at the daylong event – both on stage and in the hallways of the Venetian Convention and Expo Center. Titled “Pioneering Pathways: Integrating Measurement-Informed Behavioral Health Care into the Healthcare Ecosystem,” the panel was moderated by Meadows Institute Chief Innovation Officer Kacie Kelly and featured the insights of Meadows Institute Chief Policy Officer John Snook, Dr. Lisa Rosenthal, chief of the division of consultation psychiatry at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Chris Molaro, CEO of NeuroFlow.

Here are five key takeaways from the forum:

1. Raise the bar on quality digital mental health
The behavioral health tech industry has made “great strides” in the past 10 years, but it’s time to raise the bar by adopting a new definition of quality, said Brad Kittredge, co-founder and CEO of Brightside Health. Mental health care coverage does not necessarily equal quality of care, he said. “We need to go deeper on what ‘quality’ means. The time has come for a clearer, more actionable definition of quality care.” Kittredge added that he would favor payers requiring reliable quality measures to be appended to every claim submitted.

2. Measurement is the key to more accurate diagnoses and outcomes
The medical profession is accustomed to measuring risk factors like blood pressure and cholesterol, but the psychiatric field has been too slow to take up measurement, said Northwestern University’s Dr. Lisa Rosenthal. Currently, mental health clinicians must ask patients to explain their needs or rely on mere impressions. “That shouldn’t fly,” Rosenthal stressed. “It’s imperative that psychiatry enters the rest of medical care. Measurement allows us to do that.” Moderator Kacie Kelly agreed. “If we measure it, we can more effectively find solutions for it.”

3. “Tech can be your friend”
Physician burnout was a major theme of the gathering. “Most physicians are burned out,” said Russell Olsen, chief product and technology officer at Kipu Health, pointing to a survey showing that 68% of physicians agree that significant swaths of their time are wasted by administrative burden and tasks. Technology can be a powerful tool to combat burnout, said NeuroFlow CEO Chris Molaro. “The simple math is that there are not enough mental health professionals to meet the need in the country.” Technology, Molaro said, allows for the scaling of commonly used screening tools such as the PHQ-9, consistency and reliability of measurement, and can assist with workflows by allowing professionals to work at the top of their licenses. “If you are a behavioral health provider, tech can be your friend and not your frenemy – a force multiplier that extends your reach and improves access, especially in rural communities.”

4. Tech is worth the investment
Behavioral health technology platforms can streamline clinical workflows and scale existing initiatives for measuring and treating patients’ mental health symptoms, said Rosenthal. Such solutions cost money, however, and not enough health systems are willing to make the investment. “On a systems level, we have a huge opportunity to save money if we spend a little to create these solutions and buy them.”

5. Get engaged in policy
There is much uncertainty about the current political environment, said Meadows Institute Chief Policy Officer John Snook, but that also brings opportunities for the behavioral health tech industry. “There is bipartisan interest in getting this right. We have a responsibility to go forward because there is a such a need and an opportunity at this moment,” Snook said. He singled out measurement-informed care as “the skeleton key to get through the Sturm und Drang we are all seeing in the news” for its ability to save money and improve outcomes across all age brackets. With the new Make America Healthy Again Caucus on Capitol Hill prioritizing efficiency, quality, and outcomes, “now is the time to lean in,” urged Snook. “The reality is that there’s a lot of opportunity to say to lawmakers: Here is the smart way to make reforms.”