There are many healthcare-oriented apps in the marketplace, but there are few out there that offer cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and that have also been built on a multi-decade foundation of program efficacy data. Magellan’s CBT apps engage participants in psychoeducational content and activities through interactive sessions designed to maximize self-management of behavioral health symptoms such as sleep, depression, and anxiety. We recently released three apps to the Apple App Store including RESTORE (for insomnia and sleep problems), FearFighter (for anxiety, panic, and phobia), and MoodCalmer (for mild to moderate depression) and have plans to release two to three more in the near future.

But what does it take to build and release these kind of apps?

First and foremost, teamwork.

The best apps, healthcare or other, are not built by one person. They require a team of individuals coming together to work towards common goals. Our primary team includes two product owners, and two project managers who collectively work to get the vision from senior leadership (e.g. sketching ideas, wireframing, developing a curriculum), and then oversee the development teams building the apps (e.g. writing user stories, participating in daily scrum meetings, recording and producing videos, providing feedback), and then ensure smooth and timely deployment of various iterations that get delivered to our customers (e.g. delivering training, scheduling releases, communicating upgrades). Without teamwork these critical processes could not be completed and the App Store would have three fewer apps.

Second, and also very important, user feedback.

We have tens of thousands of active users on our platform, and we know that the majority of individuals who do two or more sessions report improvements in their sleep and mood. Therefore, it is very important for us know how to keep our users engaged. To drive engagement we seek out users and give them the opportunity to give us feedback on what would make our apps more helpful and more useful. Importantly, our users do not just include patients, members, and consumers, but also clinicians, care managers, and providers. We investigate how they use our apps and what features they would like to have included.  We incorporate this user feedback into our development sprints using what are called “user stories.” User stories help keep us focused on the core needs of our users, and they give us clear actionable tasks that can gauge what makes our apps successful and can also determine development steps for future iterations. For example, when we started asking our users what they would like added to our apps’ user experience, we learned about different features they would like to see. To help frame those features from the user perspective, we listed them out in user stories, such as, “As a RESTORE user I would like my sleep diary data to sync with my sleep data in the HealthKit app on my iPhone, so that I can see how data from my wearable device aligns with the sleep goals I set in RESTORE.”  When we roll out features developed from user stories, we see our engagement grow from previous years, and we validate our overall approach.

Lastly, we need to measure, test, learn, and keep building.

Our apps include a lot of content, in both English and Spanish speaking versions. The primary psychoeducational components include video recordings of narrators and clinical vignettes. The videos vary in length, and for each video embedded in the apps (there are dozens) we need to measure the length, test how long we can keep users watching, and learn from their experience. We have found that some videos are more watched than others, and we have found greater acceptance with shorter video length. Aside from just the videos, we have run a battery of tests on the features embedded in our apps and platform. These tests help us work out the bugs and improve the overall user experience. Once we are satisfied with our testing, we determine our readiness for release. Apple is pretty thorough with its acceptance and release of apps to the App Store, and we were very pleased with the turnaround time. We are now preparing to release our apps to Google Play, and will also be releasing later iterations with enhanced graphics, text-based reminders, and other features recommended by our users. Ironically, our apps are both complete and never finished, but I look forward to seeing how our apps will evolve, and continue to lead individuals to more healthy, vibrant lives.

Magellan Behavioral Health of Pennsylvania, Inc., a Medicaid managed care organization (MCO), started as the new HealthChoices behavioral health exclusive contractor for the Cambria County Behavioral Health Services Program on July 1, 2017. Magellan currently administers behavioral health benefits for Medicaid members through HealthChoices contracts with Bucks, Delaware, Lehigh, Montgomery and Northampton counties.

Magellan has over two decades of experience managing behavioral health benefits for HealthChoices members through close collaboration with members, providers and community organizations. Through this collaborative mindset, Magellan has succeeded in producing innovative efforts in the following areas:

• increases in access to care
• improved service use rates
• expansion of the continuum of services in alignment with evidence-based models
• maximization of clinical appropriateness
• nationally recognized level of quality services

Read more about Magellan’s collaboration with Cambria County, local providers, community organizations and members in the Tribune Democrat: New Behavioral Health Provider Brings Options, Jobs to Cambria County.

Stacy Ellingen is a woman from Wisconsin who’s never met an obstacle she couldn’t overcome. After graduating from high school, Stacy left home to attend the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. After graduating with a degree in journalism and advertising, she moved to Oshkosh. Now in her thirties, Stacy leads a busy professional life as a small business owner and an independent contractor with InControl Wisconsin, an organization that plays a key role in advancing self-directed supports in the state. She’s become more involved in disability advocacy efforts and the community.

Stacy’s story is a successful one—living independently for more than five years, finding a job about which she is passionate and becoming involved in her community. But now consider this success as part of Stacy’s larger story – she grew up with cerebral palsy, resulting in complex physical support needs. However, Stacy grew up believing that she could do everything others do. Working with her self-directed support consultant, Kathi Miller, an employee of TMG by Magellan Health, Stacy proved she could do everything others do.

“Kathi has helped me reach my goals in many, many ways,” Stacy said. Kathi and Stacy joined forces to identify community home care providers to support Stacy in meeting her daily needs at home and at work. They partnered to identify ways that Stacy could make responsible budget decisions in purchasing services to meet her goals. When developing her small business, Kathi supported Stacy in connecting with the local business community to create professional peer connections that enhanced her business development strategies. “Most of all though, Kathi encouraged me to keep moving forward when things got tough! She has been amazing!” said Stacy.

Download a copy of this infographic here.

Source: https://www.womenshealth.gov/nwhw/tools/infographics/mental-health/

Being a parent is one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs an individual can hold. When behavioral health challenges are added, it becomes even more difficult. Try, for a moment, to imagine being a foster parent to a child with behavioral health challenges. Where does one even begin to find the help and services they need to best care for their child?

Through our collaboration with the Wyoming Department of Health, Division of Healthcare Financing (Medicaid), Magellan in Wyoming coordinates care, including behavioral health interventions with other youth serving agencies in our system, using the High Fidelity Wraparound (HFWA) model to build a team of support for the successful management of complex conditions and behaviors in home- and community- based settings. The team creates steps to help youth stay in their homes, schools and communities. Through the 10 guiding principles of the program, families and youth have a voice in their care and choice in the kind of care they receive. We help to strengthen community support, understanding, and education of at risk youth ages 4-20 with complex behavioral health needs.

Magellan in Wyoming recently had the opportunity to hear from a former foster parent and HFWA graduate to discuss how the program benefited them through their challenges and supported their growth. “Opening my heart up to love and attachment with these children, parenting them with unconditional love, all the while knowing, they might not stay was difficult,” said the foster parent.

The siblings involved and their foster family cycled through numerous foster care workers in three years, creating more trauma for everyone. There was no stability and no consistency. Dealing with several different mental health diagnoses and many weekly appointments, in addition to the strain of everyday life, took a toll.

When this family discovered HFWA, they were naturally a little skeptical. They had experienced enough “new” things; however, this was the beginning of a completely new outlook on life. From the very start, HFWA taught the foster parent that it was okay to take a breath, to sleep and to ask for support. More importantly, it became evident that people wanted to help and be on the family’s team to help support them.

The family had spent so much time triaging the risk aspects of their children’s lives, that it had drained them of most of their hope. Through the strengths-based principles of the HFWA program, the family was able to gain new insight into ways they could focus on the local supports available to help them.

The program taught them to see the progress. By forming a HFWA team around the foster children and the whole family, they were able to gain some positive, strengths-based perspective along with stability and consistency.

HFWA empowered the family to have a voice and to use it effectively. “I knew all the people on my team before HFWA, but the program taught me how to use my voice. It taught me how to say what was going on and who to say it to,” said the foster parent. It was because of the family’s team, as well as community investment in the program, that today, the family is enjoying a life full of hope and possibility.

As a former Medicaid recipient who relied on treatment from community behavioral health centers, I know first-hand the transformative power a peer specialist can have a in a person’s life.

In my late teens and early twenties, I bounced from state hospitals to crisis stabilization units desperate to end my life. I had no hope that the goals I had envisioned prior to these struggles could be realized. When I started working with a peer specialist, I began to view myself and my future in a more positive light. My peer specialist expected me to recover and connected me to the resources and supports that empowered my recovery process. The painful experiences of my past paired with skills and knowledge of the healthcare system have provided me a platform for me to help others while creating lasting change. The opportunity to do such meaningful, passion-filled work for more than 40 hours of my week keeps me inspired and grateful to be a part of helping our members’ lead healthy and vibrant lives.

The work we do through Magellan Complete Care of Florida’s peer navigation program is literally changing the trajectory of peoples’ lives. Peer support offers hope to the hopeless. It helps our members see new possibility in a life that feels limited. I often tell the team that they have the hardest job in healthcare, as the members we support have multiple chronic health conditions, may live in poverty, and have challenges getting their basic needs met, such as food and housing. The team is 100 percent field-based and every day they show up and not only listen and support our members, but are willing to share pieces of their own story to inspire hope and change. The results have been nothing less than extraordinary. We’ve seen decreased inpatient days and a reduction in healthcare spending, but more importantly, members are re-engaging in their community and reaching goals related to their health and wellness. We bear witness to life change as members discover their power and break through barriers to accomplish what had once been buried dreams.

These potentially life changing interactions happen every single day with our staff and the members they touch. There are a lot of examples of member success stories, but here are two that underscore the power of peer support:

• Kevin’s low self-esteem led him to live a very unhappy and socially reclusive life. Driven by fear of the world and feelings of being uncared for, Kevin attempted suicide. Thanks to the support provided by Magellan Complete Care through a peer specialist that visits him weekly, Kevin now lives a positive and socially involved life. He enjoys spending time with his new friends and communicating with his peer specialist.
• Joe struggled with debilitating challenges such as depression, suicidal attempts, chronic homelessness, wheelchair-boundedness, severe eye health problems, frequent hospital admissions, inconsistent medication usage and medical follow-ups. Magellan Complete Care worked with Joe to move toward the road to recovery through a complex case management program with a care coordination team and a peer support specialist. The team linked Joe to medical and psychiatric providers, a mental health agency and helped him obtain an independent living facility, food stamps, a new wheelchair, phone, eye glasses, and transportation assistance to attend appointments and follow-ups. Magellan Complete Care also assisted Joe in obtaining a referral for a prosthetic leg. Magellan then linked Joe with a job agency to support his goal of acquiring a job.

The members’ feelings of hope, pride, and self-confidence are contagious and we share these feelings when we reflect on the difference the health plan and staff makes in members lives. Our members are changing their own lives, but ours are changing along with them.