Relevant data statistics from the same year show that among more than 200 million people with psychological problems, the incidence rates of anxiety disorder and depression are the highest, as high as 4.98% and 3.59% respectively. They are the diseases with the largest proportion in psychiatric outpatient clinics. Taking depression as an example, according to 2021 Chinese Science The "China National Mental Health Development Report 2019-2020" released by the hospital shows that the average number of depressed people nationwide is about 17% (including 13.4% in the eastern region, 12.4% in the northeastern region, 20.6% in the central region, and 20.1% in the western region).
In 2017, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security canceled the certification of psychological counselors. About 1.1 million people had obtained the certification in 15 years.
At the same time, although there are millions of psychological counselors, there are actually less than 100,000 people engaged in full-time or part-time work in the psychological counseling industry. In addition to a lack of mental health service resources in my country, there is also an uneven distribution. They are mainly distributed at the provincial and municipal levels, and there is a shortage at the grassroots level.
Mental health services refer to the use of psychological and medical theories and methods to prevent and reduce various emotional, thinking or behavioral disorders caused by psychological problems, including education and prevention, psychological assessment, psychological consultation, drug treatment and other intervention measures.
In addition, due to the lack of traditional treatment intervention methods, most interventions for such psychological problems are based on drugs, which is the same pain point as all chronic disease management.
In the past, due to the limited public awareness and emphasis on mental health, mental health services were sought only when psychological problems developed to a serious stage and had a serious impact on normal life, such as being unable to socialize normally or having suicidal tendencies. Patients who received drug treatment had unsatisfactory treatment results due to difficulties in finding personalized medication plans and poor medication compliance.
From the demand side, on the one hand, the fast-paced and high-pressure modern economic society has given rise to more psychological problems, and psychological problems run through the entire life cycle from children and adolescents to old age, and the demand group is huge; on the other hand, with the policy and market With education, more people with varying degrees of psychological problems are willing to seek help from mental health services. Coupled with the catalysis of the COVID-19 epidemic, the demand for mental health services has increased sharply. However, the growth rate of supply-side service capabilities is far slower than the growth rate of demand. In terms of diagnosis and treatment technology, there is also a lack of effective methods for various psychological problems.
Against this background, digitalization has come to the field of mental health services as needed and has started its irreversible accelerated development path.
In recent years, the policy side has frequently issued documents, covering the guidance, specific implementation and subsequent continuous promotion of mental health services , pointing out the need to establish and improve mental health education , psychological hotline services, psychological assessment, psychological consultation, psychotherapy and psychiatric treatment and other joint and cooperative psychological crisis intervention and psychological assistance service models.
In addition, the "Notice on Key Tasks and Additional Pilots for the Construction of the National Social Psychological Service System in 2020" lists Wuhan as a new pilot area for the construction of the national social psychological service system, and requires more than 50% of villages to set up psychological consultation rooms, 20 More than % of hospitals need to open psychiatric outpatient clinics; the "Notice on Issuing the Key Work Tasks for the National Social Psychological Service System Construction Pilot in 2021" further improves the goal, requiring 100% of psychiatric hospitals in the jurisdiction to set up psychological outpatient clinics, and 40% of second-level and above general hospitals to open psychiatric (psychological) outpatient clinics.
Beijing’s Haidian District launched mental health service activities in 2016, licensing the first batch of 34 community health service centers to establish psychological consultation rooms, and including related services in medical insurance.
The COVID-19 epidemic has further increased the country’s emphasis on mental health, and policies for psychological crisis intervention during the epidemic have emerged one after another.
Against this background, the field of mental health services has also ushered in many digital-focused companies, aiming to make limited mental health service resources cover a wider group of people through the integration of technology and professional knowledge, and continue to explore and innovate service models and service tools, thereby improving overall accessibility and effectiveness.
In addition to policy guidance and support, capital with a keen sense of smell has already begun to support and bet on the development of digital mental health services. More and more companies focusing on digital mental health services have obtained financing.
It can be seen that the former is more mature and the competitive landscape is beginning to emerge; while the latter is currently a more emerging track and a new popular direction for corporate innovation and capital investment.
"Digital therapy product companies" target different application scenarios and links, bringing new service tools to different levels of psychological problems. We have taken stock of some digital companies in the industry. The platforms of "Internet platform companies" are further divided into diagnosis and treatment and consulting classes. The products of "digital therapy product companies" are divided into consumer grade and medical grade based on different market positioning and planning.
Diagnosis and treatment Internet platforms, such as Zhaoyang Doctor, Good Mood, Xiaodian Health, etc., mainly provide online follow-up consultations and drug delivery for patients with severe psychological problems and mental disorders through Internet hospital platforms; consulting Internet platforms, such as Yixinxi, Simple Psychology, Yidianling, etc., mainly provide psychological consultation services for serious psychological problems, general psychological problems and healthy people through self-built Internet platforms.
Enterprises that provide specific service products with digital therapy as the exploration direction are divided into two categories: consumer grade and medical grade based on different product application scenarios and market positioning. Cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation and mindfulness are the most popular intervention methods in this track. They usually use software as a carrier and are presented in the form of task-based and gamification. Many of their products directly reach the C-end user market.
In this track, cognitive behavioral therapy still has the highest popularity. It usually provides digital therapy through software combined with wearable and other hardware, and is positioned to obtain the national medical device certificate through the results of effectiveness clinical trials. By reaching hospitals and doctors, it comes to patients in the form of prescriptions.
In addition, there is a lack of industry consensus and effective solutions to various psychological problems.
In addition, many regions are trying to include the cost of psychological treatment in medical insurance.
Compared with other chronic diseases, the long-term management of mental health relies less on equipment: on the one hand, regular effect assessment relies on professional scales or with the help of some wearable devices for assessment that are gradually emerging in the industry, without the need for testing or physical detection indicators; on the other hand, On the other hand, the treatment process also pays more attention to communication with patients and their families, and there is a small chance that there will be a need for in-hospital treatment equipment. In addition, due to the uniqueness of psychological problems, there is a certain degree of misunderstanding and discrimination in public perception, which gives patients an obvious sense of shame and prevents them from seeking help offline, thereby potentially delaying the best opportunity for treatment.
For areas with relatively backward economies, especially primary medical institutions in these areas, mental health service resources are extremely scarce.
In this context, an Internet platform focusing on psychology has also emerged in response to demand. By inviting psychiatrists, psychotherapists and psychological counselors from all over the country to join the platform, psychological experts can be "online", thus breaking geographical restrictions and allowing everyone to share mental health service resources, directly improving service accessibility.
In terms of cost, the online method saves patients the economic and time costs of traveling to and from the hospital. The online psychological service model based on the Internet can effectively reduce this series of costs. This is one of the important factors that prevent patients from seeking mental health services offline.
Currently, there are many types of psychotherapeutic drugs for doctors and patients to choose from.
During this period, doctors' professional guidance is a guarantee and "shortcut" to ensure patient medication safety, reduce trial and error costs, and shorten trial and error cycles.
On the one hand, it is limited by patients' insufficient knowledge about medication; on the other hand, the inconvenience of follow-up consultation and communication in the traditional diagnosis and treatment model has set up high obstacles for patients. The problem of inconvenient follow-up consultation and communication among patients has been well solved in the digital transformation of mental health services.
First, because patients need to stay with the same doctor for a long time, they need to "accommodate" the doctor's clinic time. For most office workers, they often need to make an appointment with a doctor in advance and ask for leave in advance. These "medical costs" often lead to untimely follow-up visits, or even giving up follow-up visits. Therefore, making good use of the limited consultation time requires patients to have a high ability to summarize information, so that doctors can understand the drug use process in the shortest time and give suggestions for drug adjustment plans.
Generally, most patients will not return for a follow-up consultation and seek a new drug regimen when the first drug treatment has major side effects or the effect is not obvious. Instead, they think the drug treatment is ineffective and stop taking the drug on their own, thus missing the best treatment period and even losing trust in mental health services. Some patients stop taking the drug on their own out of fear of drug addiction or eager to get rid of the title of "psychological problem."
Patients only need to upload their medication feedback and the help they want in the form of pictures and texts (can be added multiple times) through the mobile phone in their spare time, so that the situation is completely recorded, and more accurate medication recommendations can be obtained. In this way, patients can complete timely medication feedback and regular follow-up visits without leaving home.
In addition to the convenience provided by the above Internet attributes, the digital psychological online diagnosis and treatment model is also based on big data and artificial intelligence and other technologies. It also provides many digital services in patient consultation, doctor consultation and prescription, and patient drug purchase to improve the efficiency and accuracy of online medical treatment.
Patients without a medical background will inevitably "fail to grasp the key points", and the "quality" of the information provided will be low or the information provided will not be sufficient to support diagnosis and treatment. The diagnosis and treatment platform uses artificial intelligence and other technologies to guide patients in the form of AI assistant questions and answers or questionnaires to describe diagnosis and treatment-related information in a more comprehensive, direct and effective way, ensuring that the information is complete and useful, and improving the communication efficiency between patients and doctors.
In addition, based on big data technology, the platform continuously trains algorithms through diagnosis and treatment guidelines and a large amount of real medical treatment data on the platform, providing doctors with auxiliary diagnostic suggestions in the diagnosis and treatment process, further improving the efficiency of diagnosis and helping to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and treatment.
After the doctor writes a prescription and the patient completes the payment online, the medicine can be delivered to the home by express delivery. This series of digital services has improved the efficiency and accuracy of online diagnosis and treatment in various aspects in different aspects.
In addition to using digital technology to help doctors and patients improve treatment efficiency, accuracy and medication compliance, the diagnosis and treatment platform also relies on the accumulation of a large amount of doctor and patient data, as well as a large amount of multi-dimensional data such as diagnosis and treatment procedures, medication usage, etc. to help pharmaceutical companies with precision marketing, and empowers digital real-world research on drugs, helping pharmaceutical companies complete post-marketing research to continuously discover rare side effects and potential indications of drugs, thereby nurturing mental health services and making drugs, a "sharp tool" for treatment, safer and more effective.
Each counselor's field of expertise and the causes of each client's psychological problems are unique. If the client can find a counselor whose expertise overlaps and matches the causes of his or her own psychological problems to the greatest extent when seeking consultation, the effectiveness of the consultation will be greatly improved and the cause of the psychological problems will be shortened. Shorten the trial-and-error process for clients to find the "right" counselor. This means that in addition to the areas of expertise of the counselor that matches the client's need for help, the counselor's own communication style and counseling habits also need to match the client's in order to maintain a long-term counseling relationship, thereby establishing a benign and effective interaction on this basis.
In Europe and the United States, the professional qualifications for psychological counselors have higher thresholds and requirements. More importantly, these regions often have a supervisory mechanism for counselors and a continuing education system for professional improvement, which covers the entire career of psychological counselors and is constantly revised and improved.
Therefore, the industry has been in a state of "free growth". The professional abilities of psychological counselors are uneven, and the number of qualified and excellent counselors is difficult to meet the huge market demand. Unlike the canceled psychological counselor qualification certificates, this type of certificate is a training certificate, not a professional qualification certificate . It is more about improving the "quality" of counselors rather than improving the "quantity" of counselors.
In addition to providing professional platforms for psychological counselors, these platforms also play the role of "continuing education" and "supervision" to a certain extent.
Regular offline centralized training plus online long-term training and supervision allow the industry's limited high-quality psychological training resources to cover more professional psychological counselors and jointly improve the quality of psychological counseling services.
For consultants who do not meet the assessment standards, the platform will require consultants to complete corresponding theoretical study, supervision and practice based on the rating results. However, since such "supervision" is linked to the number of visitors the consultant can get, consultation fees, fee sharing ratio, etc., there are also many doubts in the industry, believing that there is the possibility of "squeezing" consultants so that the platform can obtain consultant resources at a lower cost. Psychological consultation is generally a stage where the counselor evaluates and understands the client, and usually does not involve too much psychological intervention; the next 3-10 sessions are usually short-term consultations, the 10-30 sessions are medium-range consultations, and the 30th sessions and above are long-term consultations. Industry average data shows that 40% of clients will drop out during the assessment and understanding stage, 20% of clients will persist in the short- and medium-term consultation stages, and 40% of clients will persist in long-term consultation after gaining a deeper understanding of themselves and psychological counseling.
The original intention of canceling the psychological counselor qualification certification was also to issue more standardized and powerful policies and regulations to give the industry the soil for healthy development. At the same time, the current efforts and attempts of various platforms for "supervision" will also become a valuable reference for the formulation of regulations.
Psychological problems, why do we need a physical examination? "In just a few minutes of treatment, without even hearing me finish my feelings, he prescribed a large list of tests and then prescribed medicine. Can such treatment be effective?" "This is the experience of many patients who have finally mustered up the courage to seek help in the psychiatric department of the hospital, and it is also the reason why many "self-help" wishes have been extinguished. However, people who need psychological help are generally more sensitive, and the causes of psychological problems are complex. In addition to traditional outpatient services, they also need "like spring breeze" care or in-depth communication full of empathy.
The expectations of seekers are not "unreasonable", because drugs and psychological counseling are based on the principles and functions of treatment. Dimensions such as effectiveness time, price, and active ingredients are different. The treatment and improvement of psychological problems are not an either-or relationship. It is necessary to provide corresponding integrated solutions at different times based on the severity of the psychological problems, service demands, economic strength and other factors of the seekers.
First, based on examinations, organic diseases and other possible factors are excluded, and then the type of psychological problem is diagnosed through a questionnaire, and then the appropriate medication is prescribed, including mood-regulating drugs. You do not necessarily have or are required to have a professional background in psychotherapy. Generally, this process takes a long time and the results are slow. The results are related to the counselor's professional ability, practical experience and the client's own cognitive level, so the final results vary from person to person.
However, in the field of psychological services in my country, drug prescriptions and psychological consultation are provided by two different roles: psychiatrists and counselors. Under the appearance of "disappointment of help seekers", what is hidden is that "the seekers are disappointed due to loss of help". The hidden dangers of giving up seeking help will miss the best treatment time and aggravate the degree of psychological problems, and "the seekers will lose confidence in the treatment and give up seeking help because of a single plan and fail to obtain the treatment effect as expected."
Psychiatrists integrate drug prescribing and psychological counseling skills through further training in psychological counseling related professions and skills; and psychiatrists, psychological counselors, and psychotherapists jointly evaluate and formulate treatment plans are two mainstream integration methods.
The two platforms focusing on consultation and diagnosis and treatment have gradually extended their business to each other through self-construction or cooperation to form a closed loop of integrated drug and psychological consultation services. At the same time, with the support of digital technology, the platform has continued to accumulate the expertise of the two types of experts. Professional skills and practical experience in diagnosis and treatment; combined with the information of the seeker obtained from the platform questionnaire (such as problems related to psychological severity, financial strength, and expected diagnosis and treatment results, etc.), a big data algorithm is established to automatically generate an integrated treatment plan to provide doctors with auxiliary decision-making information and improve the collaboration efficiency between doctors and consultants.
According to research, in the process of psychological treatment, especially in the psychological counseling sector, the online and offline experiences have not yet reached the same level of effect on all seekers, and offline psychological services still have an indispensable position.
In addition to the above-mentioned integration trends, Internet platform companies are also actively deploying digital products. On the other hand, through independent research and development or cooperation, they provide self-service or semi-self-service digital products for help seekers to strengthen the effect of psychological intervention, such as various self-assessment questionnaires, psychology-related courses, meditation-type emotion conditioning products, etc. Taking Good Mood as an example, based on the large amount of data accumulated on the platform, combined with artificial intelligence and VR technology, they actively deploy digital products and use self-research and cooperation to enrich the platform's mental health service content.
Doctors and consultants are the most important service resources of the platform. Using digitalization to improve their efficiency is an important way to increase the upper limit of the platform's service capabilities. Self-service products that visitors can pay to purchase and experience will also dig deeper into and satisfy the needs of a large number of help seekers accumulated on the platform, thereby gaining new business growth points.
●The psychological internet diagnosis and treatment platform facilitates follow-up consultations and consultations for those seeking help. It also helps doctors and consultants improve their services through digital tools, such as AI pre-diagnosis assistants, auxiliary diagnosis systems, etc. service efficiency and accuracy, while improving the service experience of those seeking help ●Digital psychological products, such as meditation emotion regulation products, facial emotion recognition products, psychological problem self-assessment gadgets, etc., are a new direction for the layout of platform companies. While supporting the original business, they are also a new growth point for corporate business.
The training time and money cost of psychiatrists, psychotherapists and psychological counselors is very high, which is also an important objective reason why the ratio of the number of mental health experts in my country is quite different from international standards . At present, a psychological consultation lasts about 50 minutes, and the cost generally ranges from 400 yuan to 1,000 yuan depending on the qualifications of the psychological counselor. Some expert-level consultants even cost more than 1,000 yuan. This is not a fixed fee that many families can easily afford in the long term.
In the traditional mental health service model, experts are overwhelmed with treating the former and are powerless to provide mental health services for the latter.
Its introduction can improve the work efficiency of experts, supplement the shortcomings of traditional mental illness prevention, treatment and management links, improve the replicability, effectiveness and service experience of mental health services. It can also effectively reduce the price of mental health services, improve the accessibility of mental health services and reduce the overall cost in the mental health field.
One of the core resources of mental health services is the large amount of professional psychology-related knowledge mastered by psychiatrists and psychological counseling experts, as well as the rich diagnosis, treatment, and intervention experience gained on this basis. Based on these valuable data, big data and algorithm technology are used, and artificial intelligence is used to automatically reproduce effective intervention programs that have been verified in the real world when needed. This is an important original intention of exploring digital therapy products in the psychological field.
The difference between the two is that consumer-grade products focus more on the improvement and alleviation of emotions and behaviors caused by psychological problems, while medical-grade products focus on the mental diseases listed in the national recognized catalog. On the premise of ensuring safety in prevention, treatment and management, they have clinically proven results.
At present, cognitive behavioral therapy is the most popular product intervention technology in this field due to its strong autonomous operation, low requirements for feedback interaction, and multiple effectiveness supports. Basic medical-grade products often also integrate the application of VR, AR, EEG and other technologies, and cooperate with corresponding hardware.
According to the "2020 National Mental Health Status Survey Report", people have multiple mental health service needs, among which professional knowledge related to self-regulation occupies the first place. It can be seen that there are still a large number of unmet market demands in the consumer-level mental health service sector.
Therefore, drug treatment in traditional treatment methods is not suitable, and a stable and long-term psychological counseling plan is not cost-effective. Users only need to place an order online to use it by themselves and start a self-regulated psychological intervention journey.
At the same time, such companies are also actively trying to cooperate with various related platforms and individuals; for example, with , Himalaya, , Tingshu and other platforms, more users with potential psychological intervention needs can be covered by providing psychological content; in addition, life or health bloggers on short video platforms such as , Douyin, and are also popular channels for cooperation.
"Digital Therapy Value Assessment and Integrated Application Guide" mentioned that one of the basic principles of the 10 differences between digital therapy and health management APPs is that " has the participation of users in the product development and application process." Therefore, whether consumer-grade or medical-grade products, after they are launched, it is necessary to continuously accumulate real user usage data, and continuously iterate and optimize the product based on user feedback.
Currently, the two most common models are the SaaS model to help enterprises implement mental health services internally and the overall mental health solution to provide enterprises with systems and services.
ToC products usually have a use cycle of 2 weeks or several weeks. Depending on the intensity and frequency of intervention, the price is mostly between a few hundred yuan and a thousand yuan. There are also plans with lower intervention intensity or experiential plans positioned in the range of tens of yuan. Digital products based on software for self-service use by consumers start. A key point of effectiveness is compliance, that is, insisting on experiencing the full cycle of the intervention plan. Among them, "user self-driving force" is one of the very important influencing factors. The other side of the coin is the high promotion threshold and cost of toC products. Industry insiders believe that the key to increasing the volume of toC products lies in continuously lowering prices under the premise of guaranteed effects.
But at the same time, because the payers and users are not unified, that is, corporate employees may not have or have not discovered that they have related needs for mental health services, so they cannot have enough self-motivation to experience the complete product. This may not be beneficial to digital product companies that want to continuously optimize and iterate product performance through real data.
However, for example, Changling Capital Management Partner Jiang Xiaodong emphasized in the survey that at present, companies in the mental health service field that focus on product creation should pay more attention to product strength and product effect creation. In this incremental market, what is more important than the business model is how to bring good and effective products to the market that users really need.
According to research, among the theoretical foundations currently used to design digital therapy products at the consumer level, cognitive behavioral therapy is the most popular psychological intervention basis for consumer-level products and even the entire mental health service field due to its high degree of standardization, strong independent operability, and the highest effectiveness evidence support. The two key dimensions for improving effectiveness are "intervention technology" and "interaction design". The two complement each other and work together in a spiral to improve product effectiveness.
Therefore, the company's expert team needs to "gather the strengths of hundreds of experts" at the beginning of product development, deeply understand the core and essence of each intervention technology, combine it with the understanding of digital therapy and product positioning, and select intervention technologies that have low user self-service thresholds and are consistent with product positioning for organic integration. For example, the "EBP series" products under the Pause Lab brand created by various technologies combine cognitive behavioral therapy, Intervention technologies such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and positive psychological intervention provide users with a series of basic to advanced practice plans such as emotional stress reduction, healthy eating, and sleep improvement in a 25-day cycle. KnowYourself (knowyourself) combines professional knowledge and expert experience to create a product "psychological co-training camp" to help users relieve anxiety and help fall asleep through 15-20 minutes of independent training every day.
Based on real user usage data, on the one hand, we constantly revise existing intervention technologies, on the other hand, we continue to develop different intervention products that are more personalized and targeted. This is the path for enterprises to explore after the products are launched.
Compared with "intervention technology", it relies more on continuous optimization after launch, real user feedback and co-creation with users. Therefore, one of the reasons why excellent "interaction design" is indispensable for product effectiveness is to improve the user experience and avoid terminating product use due to questions during product use. More importantly, it is to collect common problems of user use and base them on Here, the product's "intervention technology" and "interaction design" sections are continuously optimized and iterated, thereby gradually reducing reliance on manpower while improving the effectiveness and differentiation of the product. Currently, the rate of its 60,000 participants who have completed the 25-day intervention plan is as high as 68%, and based on the good results, the overall renewal rate of the intervention plan has reached 42%, and 93% of participants are willing to recommend the training to others.
During this period, what companies have to do is to obtain more effective real data in a shorter time, speed up product iterative upgrades, continuously improve product effectiveness while improving product self-service, thereby reducing product costs and market pricing to increase volume in a larger market.
The survey found that most companies not only have strict professional thresholds for R&D teams, but also employees in other positions are basically graduates of psychology majors or have benefited from mental health services before. Currently, most experts in the psychological field are still concentrated in research institutes. Companies call for more experts to join so that the theory can be put into the market. People who have "psychological benefits" are also highly welcome to join to jointly accelerate the development process of the field.
Currently, it is positioned as a medical-grade digital therapy, targeting the nationally recognized catalog of mental illnesses, including the five links of screening, assessment, diagnosis, intervention and rehabilitation, covering the entire process of prevention, treatment and management. In serious medical scenarios, assessment is the prerequisite and important support for patient intervention plans. This may be one of the reasons; another important reason is that the national clinical exemption policy no longer requires clinical trials for evaluation products, which greatly shortens the time for product certification. The industry urgently needs more therapeutic products for mental illness catalog diseases to appear and be put into clinical treatment after being approved by NMPA.
According to research, the field of mental health is positioned as medical-grade digital therapy. Based on mental health intervention technology and digital technology, there are many different new technologies and attempts to integrate new disciplines with . Such combinations reduce the "difficulty of use" for users. degree" to improve user compliance; at the same time, it can increase the accuracy of user status assessment and control, thereby continuously adjusting product design and improving the effectiveness of product use. According to data provided by the company, more than 80% of users take an average of 10-15 minutes to fall asleep after a course of treatment, and all of them reach deep sleep.
As mentioned above, medical-grade products naturally have a certain degree of "differentiation" due to their attempts to integrate with new technologies and disciplines. This requires the use of a large amount of real user data to continuously refine the algorithms, and at the same time extend more personalized intervention programs to respond to the needs of patients at different disease stages and different disease levels.
Medical-grade products are positioned for clinical use. Obtaining the medical device certificate from NMPA is the basis for listing. Digital therapies with therapeutic efficacy for the nationally prescribed disease list still require rigorous clinical trials to confirm the safety and effectiveness of the product. Therefore, in addition to "product polishing", effective and feasible clinical trial design is also a "marketing difficulty" that companies need to overcome. Companies need to work with experts to discuss reasonable clinical trial designs and strictly implement them based on product characteristics and expected verification goals.
Since then, the conditions and requirements for global digital therapy approval have been gradually improved and clarified. By then, the industry will usher in more and more high-quality and effective therapeutic digital therapy products.
learned from a survey of the founders of many medical-grade digital therapy R&D companies in the industry and investors focusing on digital mental health services that the industry urgently needs more effective, standardized, and replicable treatment methods and tools for mental illness to supplement traditional methods. The deficiencies of treatment methods break their limitations. Therefore, they also emphasized that digital therapy is not a replacement for traditional treatment methods or doctors and experts, but an effective supplement. On the premise that safety and effectiveness have been verified, it can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of traditional treatments, effectively contribute to digital mental health service tools and act as an accelerator for industry development.
● In the field of mental and mental health, digital therapies used for disease treatment have strict clinical trial requirements, in which trial design is crucial. Since there is no mature protocol for reference, companies need to work with experts to design an effective clinical trial program based on product characteristics.
The mental health service industry has always had pain points such as imbalance between supply and demand, uneven distribution of mental health service resources, lack of standardization of services, and difficulty in quantifying effects. Companies that support digital transformation in my country's mental health service industry are mainly divided into "Internet platform companies" and "digital therapy product companies."
Through the psychological vertical platform, expert resources can break through geographical restrictions and reach people who need psychological intervention across the country, alleviating the problem of uneven distribution of mental health service resources to a certain extent. Therefore, various digital tool products that assist experts in providing psychological services are gradually emerging in the industry, such as artificial intelligence assistants to help collect and organize medical records, provide auxiliary diagnosis and intervention opinions, and provide regular follow-up reminders; and screening and assessment tools can help experts more accurately and quickly analyze the status of people seeking help, etc.
If we continue to stay in the stage of human psychological services relying on experts, it will still be difficult to meet my country's growing demand for mental health services simply by improving the work efficiency of experts.
Although the effects of digital transformation are beginning to show, the industry is still in its early stages. Regardless of whether it is focusing on the medical or consulting subdivisions, leading companies have already shown momentum.
"Digital therapy product companies" have the highest overall financing round. For products, whether it is toC or toB (including hospitals), whether it is positioned at the consumer level or medical level, the foundation is the effectiveness of the product. Who can give priority to use high enough effectiveness? If the product is fully recognized by the market, it will be able to gain first-mover advantages in its targeted application scenarios and product performance segments. Currently, there are no products with absolute competitive barriers in each segment. Companies are actively accumulating real usage data after the product is launched, continuously iterating product performance, and accelerating the creation of product moats.
Leading enterprise platforms continue to occupy a larger market, and product companies will continue to launch safe and effective mental health service products that are evidence-based and fully market-proven. Advantageous products with absolute competitive barriers will gradually emerge in each segment.
As of the time when the psychological counselor professional qualification certification was cancelled, about 1.1 million people in my country had obtained the psychological counselor qualification certificate, but there were less than 100,000 full-time or part-time psychological counseling practitioners. In order to reverse this phenomenon and make the psychological counselor professional system more standardized, in 2017, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security canceled the psychological counselor professional qualification certification examination.
On the demand side, high-quality counselors are very valuable resources for seekers and companies specializing in mental health services. In the current lack of professional mechanisms in the industry, it is difficult for seekers and companies to have a standard and reliable "screening" method.
Another example is companies that focus on vertical platforms for psychological counseling. They often shoulder the responsibilities of "continuous education" and "supervision" through internal training and supervision mechanisms. However, the training and binding force on consultants are limited to the platform's career period, and their influence is still limited.
In countries such as Europe and the United States, the granting of professional qualifications for psychological counselors requires higher thresholds and requirements. In addition, after counselors obtain a professional certificate, they need to regularly pass training, practice time and other assessments to "continue" the professional qualifications, and must strictly abide by relevant professional standards throughout their career. If they seriously violate professional standards, they may be revoked for life.
However, what is clear is that compared with the previous professional qualification examination for psychological counselors, the overall direction is to improve the "admission" standards for psychological counselors and improve the continuous training and professional supervision system. By then, the mental health service industry will continue to develop rapidly on a more solid foundation, and in turn will accelerate the digital construction process.
Under the guidance of policies and catalyzed by the epidemic, people are paying more and more attention to mental health, and they have begun to gradually change their past prejudices against psychological problems, which has also made some people willing to try mental health services. First of all, the public still has little understanding of mental health services, and various What kind of effect the service can achieve, how to identify and choose the mental health service that suits them, etc. are still "knowledge blind spots" for most people. Therefore, although mental health services have successfully entered the public eye and been taken seriously in recent years, a large amount of market demand has not been truly stimulated, and companies still need to work together to develop it.
In recent years, more and more companies have joined the digital mental health service industry, bringing new models and new service tools to the industry. At present, the development speed of the digital mental health service market seems to be slightly faster than the speed at which the demand market is developed. Against this background, in order to capture the limited market at this stage, there is a phenomenon in the industry that "marketing promotion" is more important than "product polishing". This will inevitably hurt users' trust in mental health services. Although temporary user retention is achieved, the impact on the development of the entire industry seems to be outweighed by the gains.
For the field of digital mental health services, both policies and capital have shown a high degree of support and attention. It is only a matter of time before market demand is fully stimulated. Currently, although companies rely on their respective advantages to enter the track from different angles and provide services with different application scenarios, different indications, and different effects, the common foundation and core of the company is continuous "product polishing" to bring safe and effective digital mental health services to users. This is the undoubted first step and a solid development foundation for the company.
With the high attention and support of policies and capital, it is only a matter of time before the market is fully stimulated. At this important stage, companies need to work together to build market trust, be patient and patient in polishing safe and effective products, and jointly develop the real market size of the digital mental health service industry.
