Modern Health rolls out data tool for employers to better pinpoint workers' mental health needs

As employers focus on ways to improve mental health access for their workers, Modern Health has rolled out a new data tool to provide better insights into the health of a company's workforce.

Modern Health, which offers a mental health benefits platform used by more than 250 employers, launched its new Insights Hub for customers as the company reports accelerating demand for its services.

The hub is a centralized portal for human resources and benefits leaders to access Modern Health reporting and resources on-demand. 

Modern Health’s Insights Hub provides human resources leaders with on-demand access to aggregated and de-identified reporting on their Modern Health benefits including registration, engagement and usage across 1:1, digital, and other care types. HR leaders also can access organizational health and well-being metrics over time, in comparison to benchmarks, as well as between departments and office locations.

“HR leaders are under more pressure than ever to support their workforce,” said Lorna Henri, Modern Health’s vice president of client success, in a statement.

“With the ‘Great Resignation’ at the forefront of every leader’s mind, it’s never been more important to have visibility into the health of their organization with actionable insights that you can develop a strategy around in order to maintain a healthy and productive workplace, create loyal employees and attract top talent," Henri said.

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Mental health has become a core pillar of the corporate benefits stack, as employers recognize the impact of mental health issues on the workplace—which can result in as much as $500 billion of lost productivity per year.

COVID-19 has exacerbated an existing mental health crisis, one that will persist after the pandemic is resolved.

Enhancing access to mental health care remains a key priority for employers, according to a recent survey from The Business Group on Health. The majority of employers are making increased access to these services a key priority in 2022, and 57% said they will be focusing on reducing the stigma around mental health needs.

More insights to drive improved mental health benefits

Eventbrite, a San Francisco-based event management and ticketing website, began working with Modern Health in early 2020 to provide more mental health resources for its nearly 700 employees. 

There was a mental health crisis looming before the COVID-19 pandemic, and recent traumatic events have pushed the issue to the forefront, David Hanrahan, Eventbrite's chief human resources officer, told Fierce Healthcare.

"When the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting occurred [in 2019], it hit us with the reality of how important mental health is as we had employees connected with supporting that event and they suddenly faced the issue of, 'Where do I turn to get help with this?' Navigating healthcare carrier networks can be difficult to get mental health support. So the idea of getting on-demand mental health support, therapy and coaching for our employees was important for us," he said.

More actionable insights on employees' mental well-being can help guide the company's programs and initiatives, he said.

"I'm interested in being able to understand, on a geographic basis or a functional basis, are certain job functions more at risk of anxiety or depression, and how is that changing over time? Did something happen in a particular team or at a specific location?" he said.

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Employers can leverage insights from the new data hub to design different programs to address issues within their workforce.

As part of the portal, HR leaders can track their organization’s workplace well-being index, which is a composite well-being score introduced by Modern Health that aggregates clinically validated measures of well-being, depression, anxiety and burnout. Leaders can use this to understand at a high level the health of the organization and how this compares to average benchmarks, company executives said.

"We're having ongoing discussions about what we can do with this data. It's a new frontier," Hanrahan said. "Access to mental health data, on a team and location basis, opens all sorts of windows about the actions we can take."

Henri told Fierce Healthcare that the company was driven to develop the data hub as employer customers have a strong "hunger" for data-based insights into their cultures and overall workforce well-being.

RELATED: Employers name mental health access as key priority: survey

"These HR business partners want to know what are they struggling with, what are they grappling with, and how can we help? My team was gathering the data from disparate parts of the organizations and digesting it on behalf of customers and then getting it to them," she said. "Over the course of this year, we’ve spent a huge effort to automate that collection, ensuring it’s completely anonymized and put on a portal so HR business partners have access to it 24/7."

Modern Health reports accelerated growth

The San Francisco-based startup offers a suite of mental health solutions comprised of digital programs, virtual coaching and clinical therapy available in 35 languages all available in a single app.

"Modern Health offers something for everyone, wherever they are in their mental health journey," Henri said. "That’s a big part of what we’re hearing from employers, they want something that everyone can access."

The mental health space also has seen record investment in the past year. 

Modern Health, which reached "unicorn" status in February, reports continued hypergrowth in the second quarter of 2021. The company has grown its team 104% in 2021 to support the rapidly growing demand for mental health support across the globe.

The company also has tripled its consumer base since March 2020, Henri said.