11. Overcoming Mental Health Challenges with Telepsychiatry
There is a great spectrum of factors affecting mental health and creating new challenges for healthcare professionals in 2024. COVID-induced limitations have fueled a relatively new niche in psychiatry and mental health care—telepsychiatry.
This branch showcased a wide horizon for development: due to the COVID-19 outbreak, many people have gone through a period of psychological devastation that is reflected in clinical statistics—according to pandemic period data (October 2021), over 30% of American adults report symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder, while earlier surveys suggested that the same indicator was less than 10% in 2019.
Here are some of the most frequent mental health phenomenons that will affect the mental health of the U.S. population in 2024:
- Psychological issues related to returning to in-person work (or hybrid workstyles).
- Post-covid syndrome with mental disorder symptoms.
- Post-traumatic stress syndrome in healthcare employees.
- Anxiety and depression caused by social limitations and lockdown policies.
- Digital overload, multitasking stress, and professional burnout.
These new challenges require a modern solution including tele-behavioral health software that allows psychiatrists and psychotherapists to help more patients at a time.
12. More Digital Health Unicorns Will Exit via IPO
For the most part, cutting-edge technologies are being introduced to the world of medicine by ambitious and open-minded startups. Large companies that have a well-established workflow rarely strive for innovative changes.
To break through the competition, these small startups need to come up with something extraordinary and beneficial. Most of them focus on digital innovation, and those who manage to grow their assets to $1 billion or more acquire the status of digital health unicorns, a term used to describe a rare and unique entity.
Once a startup’s administration gains power and resources and can stand firmly on its feet, the decision to sell the project or its shares follows as a logical move. In the past, mergers and acquisitions were the primary mechanisms for the sale of digital health unicorns.
However, an outburst of IPO activity was observed in 2019. An increasing number of startups are giving preference to this exit option. This may be explained by the fact that mergers and acquisitions are fraught with monopoly, where large healthcare providers consume small companies, establishing dominance and exerting total control in the market.