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Automate the Burden, Not the Accountability: Responsible AI in Behavioral Health
Behavioral health organizations use technology to help with documenting, intake, scheduling, coordinating care, and retrieving information. However, myriad clinicians and other staff members still spend significant time working across numerous systems and completing administrative tasks....
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Harm Reduction Without Walls: What Technology Enables in Harm Reduction, and What It Can’t Replace
Meeting people where they are is a core principle of harm reduction, yet traditional service models can't reach everyone. Many obstacles still prevent people from accessing services, including transportation challenges, geographic isolation, limited hours, and concerns about stigma ("Encyclopedia...
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Navigating a Police Department as the Only Clinician
This summer, I had the opportunity to attend a roundtable discussion at the National Co-Responder Conference (CorCon), which brings together some of the best minds in law enforcement, social work, and case management. Conferences like CorCon provide a rare opportunity to learn about municipal...
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Expanding Behavioral Health Access in Underserved Communities
The United States faces a persistent behavioral health access gap — one that varies by market but extends well beyond federally designated shortage areas. Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) identify communities, populations, and facilities where the supply of health professionals falls...
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The Administrative Seat Behavioral Health Forgot to Fund
A therapist finishes a session at 10:50 and has ten minutes before the next one. In that gap she returns a call from a prospective client who wants to know whether his plan covers therapy. She checks a payer portal for reauthorization, then starts the progress note she will finish at...
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Beyond Compliance: Trauma-Informed Leadership as Healthcare Quality
There is something profoundly human about the work of healing. It is rarely linear, seldom predictable, and almost never confined to the structured boxes we create within healthcare systems. Yet somewhere between regulatory requirements, productivity expectations, and clinical documentation, we can...
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Moving Behavioral Health Inside Women’s Health Programs
According to UN Women, women spend about 2.5 times as many hours as men on unpaid care work, like caring for family members and managing household needs. The extra hours weigh heavily on their mental health, and 47% of women surveyed for Iris Telehealth's Invisible Load Index said they...
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“Waking Up” After 20 Years of Depression
The Feeling of Losing Hope For two decades, daily life made me feel like I was moving through deep sand. Getting out of bed felt impossible, and even walking to the kitchen to do simple tasks like refilling my water bottle felt like a marathon. I dreaded waking up each morning, knowing I would...
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Beyond the Offence: Trauma, Borderline Personality Traits, and Female Offending
Women involved in the criminal justice system often present with complex and overlapping psychological, social, and developmental needs. Histories of childhood adversity and victimization are common in justice-involved populations, and research has linked cumulative adverse childhood experiences...
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When Decline Looks Like Competence: Recognizing Distress in High-Functioning Clients
The clients our field is least equipped to detect are not the ones whose lives are visibly coming apart. They are the ones whose lives are not. A director who has never missed a deadline, a physician whose charts are immaculate, an attorney whose win rate has not moved in a decade. By the time any...
