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The United States is at a time of assurance for historic transformation in mental health care. Can the healthcare industry tackle this opportunity to unite on behalf of those in necessity?
America’s mental health has been stumbling in recent years. Millions of Americans, including numerous healthcare professionals on the front line of fighting the illness, continue to grapple with the mental health issues arising from the pandemic. However, our present mental health system is not set up to serve those who require the most support. Recent research made public by the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine, The Economic Burden of the Mental Health Inequities in the United States Report, presented tangible proof for the first time that funding in mental healthcare directly donates to saving lives and dollars.
The clarion call to remedy these problems is straightforward and urgently sounding. The real question is how aggressively the healthcare industry can drive and maintain the systemic change that addresses the challenges. One healthcare organization views this as a positive opportunity to bring forward modification on behalf of those living with mental illness. Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Inc., one of the primary leaders in mental healthcare, poses a thought-provoking perspective meant to encourage radical shifts across the spectrum of care: What if the world valued every sense? They assert that a decisive and transformative change to the U.S. mental health landscape is possible if public administrators, politicians, advocates, and policy experts connect around a focused set of objectives.
Developing the Perception of Mental Illness as a Chronic Illness
Analyzed patients have long faced a lack of parity in treatment and resourcing for extreme mental illness, contrasted with other chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
Otsuka takes the transformational perspective that mental illness is chronic, not an imperative or temporary condition. This perspective leads the association to work across the spectrum of care as they promote effective and transformative change to the U.S. mental health landscape to enhance the lives of millions of Americans with mental disease.
The association is committed to igniting conversations that will help every stakeholder entirely appreciate that mental illness is a chronic, not acute, or temporary disorder and should be resourced and ministered by policymakers and all stakeholders in the mental health community.
Concentrating on Funding Innovation
Viewing the global shortage of mental health professionals, the barriers to care encountered by millions, and the sub-optimal responses to treatments undergone by patients, it is critical to explore new and novel methods to expand access. Despite a significant industry departure from this space for many years, Otsuka has been committed to delivering new products that contribute to patients all over the world in neuropsychiatry.
In mental health, no breakthroughs or silver bullets will be known soon. Instead, there will be—much like in oncology—subtle, incremental advances that will build one on top of the other to provide improved outcomes to larger populations.
“As an inventive pharmaceutical company, we know we cannot achieve this as one association. We must look beyond our clinical pipelines to cooperate with others who may bring entirely new expertise and perspectives to the table.” Tarek Rabah, President & CEO, Otsuka North America Pharmaceutical Business.
A Contemporary Take on Patient Centricity
Committed, informed patients proactively want to participate in the decision-making procedure. Otsuka employs Patient Education Liaisons to support those in need, finding help and aid to elevate their voices. These experts help fill in the gaps by responding to patient and caregiver questions, connecting them to a local resource, and, with their consent, communicating with healthcare providers on their behalf.
Despite staggering examples of mental health struggles, most of those requiring assistance go untreated. Once people desire to care for a mental health problem, services they value and want to access should be open to them in their community without unnecessary financial burden. However, this is seldom the issue, and districts are ill-equipped to provide a well-coordinated answer to appropriate, accessible, and affordable services. Patient Education Liaisons assist support a level of care that corresponds to their level of need.
“For Otsuka, patient-centricity is more than just a term—it’s a foundation for all we do. The healthcare sector has a responsibility to unite in making a better world for those we serve,” adds Sanket Shah, Vice President Digital Health, Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc.
Otsuka is dedicated to leading the industry’s shift toward patient-centric care, wherever they need and whenever needed, whether at a physician’s office, home, urgent care clinic, or on the road.
If there is a single truth to crushing the mental health challenges that America encounters, it is that no one entity can do it unaided.
As Otsuka exhibitions, the pharmaceutical industry must attempt to be bridge-builders across a wide spectrum of stakeholders to help create the transformation that is so desperately required to ensure people receive the help they deserve.
With a collaborative commitment across the industry to empowering patients and guaranteeing their involvement, society will see advancements in healthcare that additional equity in care, address obstacles to access, and enable the launch of innovative treatments that propose renewed hope for those living with mental illness—a world where every mind is appreciated.
