Coordinated Behavioral Care, Inc. (CBC), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of care for New Yorkers with serious mental illness, minors with serious emotional disturbances, chronic health conditions and/or substance use disorders, has partnered with Karuna Health to enable care managers to communicate with patients over SMS, WhatsApp, phone calling, and email—all from a single, shared inbox that integrates bi-directionally with CBC’s current electronic care management platform. CBC IPA seeks to create a healthcare environment where New Yorkers most impacted by social determinants of health inequity and behavioral health problems receive coordinated, individualized and culturally competent community-based care that is effective in preventing and managing chronic physical and behavioral health conditions.
“Patients use SMS, MMS, email, WhatsApp, and phone calling with friends and family. Karuna gives organizations a HIPAA-compliant way to join the conversation,” explained Joe Kahn, CEO and co-founder of Karuna Health. “At heart, Karuna is about increasing access to high-value services. Our software makes it easier for patients to ask for help, or for care management programs to proactively offer support. CBC’s care managers demonstrate the very best of relationship-based care—with Karuna, we hope they can spend more time on the amazing work they do and less time waiting on hold, documenting interactions, or repeating themselves unnecessarily.”
The partnership between CBC and Karuna Health will save front-line care management staff time while helping them to improve their interactions with members. Karuna is designed to be used on web and mobile. The platform includes pre-made templates for voice and text, automation tools, and scheduled messages for ease of use in the field. It also records all interactions (including phone calls) to the EMR to reduce time spent on documentation. By aggregating all patient touch-points into a single app, Karuna makes it easier for care managers to collaborate with each other and respond to patient needs.
“CBC as an Innovations Hub is best positioned to facilitate the development and implementation of practice-based evidence that recognizes the importance of achieving impact at the practice level while considering the perspectives of those delivering the interventions as well as the recipient of those services,” said Dr. Jorge Petit, CBC’s President & CEO. “The CBC Innovations Hub is committed to the dissemination of emerging technology solutions that are focused on improving outcomes and driving value, but are also potentially replicable and sustainable across different settings for the populations served by our Network. The partnership with Karuna is an example of how we are driving innovation through adoption of emerging technologies.”
About Coordinated Behavioral Care
CBC is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of care for New Yorkers with serious mental illness, chronic health conditions and/or substance use disorders. CBC brings together over fifty community-based health and human services organizations which provide access to quality treatment, housing, employment and other needed services. CBC operates a Health Home that provides care coordination services to tens of thousands of New Yorkers of all ages, with 50+ community-based care management agencies located in all five boroughs. CBC also operates an Independent Practice Association (IPA) including a citywide network of New York State-licensed primary care, mental health and substance use treatment services, thousands of units of supportive housing, primary medical, recovery and support services, and assistance with concrete needs such as food, employment and housing. Among CBC’s innovations is the Pathway Home™, offering care transition services during the transition back to the community following discharge from an institutional setting.
About Karuna Health
Karuna is a communication platform that helps care management teams increase their reach rates, levels of patient engagement, and staff productivity. Patients use SMS, MMS, email, WhatsApp, and phone calling to connect with friends and family every day. Karuna gives care managers a HIPAA-compliant way to join the conversation. From the patient’s perspective, there is no new technology—just the same platforms they already use every day. For care teams, Karuna aggregates every patient interaction into a single, shared inbox that can be accessed on web and mobile. Karuna saves care teams time for the conversations that matter by automating documentation into the EMR and providing powerful templating tools for voice and text.
Contact Information: Coordinated Behavioral Care, Jorge R. Petit, MD, President and CEO, (646) 930-8803, www.cbcare.org. Karuna Health, Joe Kahn, CEO and Co-Founder, (857) 999-1641, www.meetkaruna.com.
