Transmission Mental Health embraces creativity and technology to help clinics engage with adolescents
Adolescents are asking for mental health providers who “have a shared life experience” or “someone who looks like me”, but clinics don’t have them. What to do?
CHAPEL HILL, NC, US, February 22, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — Concept of Inclusive Intakes
Inclusive Intakes is a novel platform that encourages adolescents to complete intakes on their phone, on their own time, before a mental health visit. They select a guide to lead them through an engaging intake process designed with a user experience that feels like TikTok or Instagram. Inclusion is front and center with patients choosing from a variety of recorded friendly guide choices representing diverse ethnicities, genders, orientations, and even languages.
Intake questions ask a variety of information, from demographics to habits, to help provide healthcare professionals with a better idea of their patient’s background and needs.
“We are listening to patients requesting and/or demanding to see, ‘Someone like me, someone with a shared experience,’” said Bryan Krehnbrink, a mental health provider and founder of Transmission Mental Health, a nonprofit organization addressing the adolescent mental health crisis, who came up with the idea of Inclusive Intakes. “There is a huge mismatch here with teens expecting diverse provider choices and desperate parents taking any appointment, with any provider, that takes their insurance. Everyone is working on recruiting and training providers of diversity, but it is going to many years before we see representation in clinics.”
Inclusive Intakes believes their process for intakes provides patients with a more comfortable start to their treatment. “Teens are usually resistant, especially when answering basic intake questions, in their first appointment.
We thought we could start encounters showing respect for who the patient is and what they are expecting. We also make it engaging and interesting for them. We are clear your guide isn’t who you will see in the clinic. The inclusive intake start breaks the ice and shows care and compassion” said Krehnbrink. Inclusive Intakes uses images, video and even appropriate memes. “If teens want images of puppies, kittens and latte-foam art with their questions, we are going to give that to them. We also offer some fun choices like an Aloha Ukulele intake and a stop motion intake. We believe in an engaging user experience and the concept of Mental Health, not Mental Illness.”
Even for Krehnbrink, it’s been a transition to embrace the use of cell phones and other devices. “Asking adolescents questions in person or via telehealth usually leads to blank stares and brief answers, but we have found they are willing to answer questions in the app,” he said. “I’ve spent a lot of time telling teenagers to put their phones away, but post-pandemic, it’s how they feel comfortable communicating. Sometimes we need to adapt and meet them where they’re at.”
If you want to learn more or try an intake yourself, visit InclusiveIntakes.com. Professionals and clinics interested in testing the platform can click the green “start” button and then “brief samples”.
bryan krehnbrink
Inclusive Intakes
+1 919-264-6378
email us here
