Humanity is ever resilient, 2020 has been THAT year, adversity striking us globally in a pandemic that no nation was ready for. It has had far-reaching impacts to mental health with an unprecedented scale of health deterioration.
In a recent survey, National Office Of Statistics highlighted that almost one in five adults were likely to be experiencing some form of depression during the pandemic in June 2020; this had almost doubled from around one in ten before the outbreak.
Many organisations have stepped up their duty of care across the globe as we continue to combat COVID-19 and climate change as acres of bush fires and floods increase stressors in the environment. We understand that personal stressors do impact an employee’s engagement at the organization, but can you measure the health and well-being of people? How do we direct our energies to help our team at the right time with the right care?
While there are numerous initiatives and campaigns to destigmatize mental health as witnessed with today’s outreach for Suicide Prevention Day, we also need to focus our energies on innovative, scalable and digital platforms to address the ongoing mental health crisis in the UK and globally. People have lost their ability to cope with stressors, levels of insomnia and anxiety are increasing and reduced accessibility to mental health services mean we’re losing the opportunity to increase health outcomes by starting with an early intervention plan.
Organizations’ and society can be equipped to respond appropriately and sensitively to these issues, if we have a consistent, scalable advocacy program to reach people on digital channels. We have been working for several months with a team of leading psychologists to contribute towards a philosophy of care at the workplace. My personal experience during the lockdown, was illuminating, in that it provided me the opportunity to use my passion in innovative technology to help friends and partners with digital tools. To assist, we are working on a technology platform for promoting the wellbeing imperative by generating data and insight for better healthcare outcomes.
Our objective is to help people thrive with great health. Our journey started by looking for ways to enhance wellbeing and increase awareness to productive, healthy lives that enable people to meet their highest potential. This is why we’re creating a connected ecosystem for employees, employers and clinicians with automated behavioral programs at scale to help everyone in need. It’s why we’re partnering with a team of clinicians and experts to base our solutions on science with clinically proven outcomes.
It is important we focus on a people-first, care-first philosophy. Using evidence-based treatment plans GAD-7, PHQ-9, WHOQoL, DASS 21, EDE-Q and AWARE to assess symptom improvement for anxiety, depression, eating disorders and other common mental health issues is essential. The resilience of our people continues to inspire me, and the focus is now on re-structuring our working lives to create a better sense of mental balance and wellbeing across all levels of our lives.
Please look after yourselves and your families. Take little snippets of time every day to connect. We are socially distanced, but we can remain emotionally connected.
Stay safe. Thank you.
Dr. Ashok Suppiah
Chairman and CEO
Ashok is a serial entrepreneur, bringing to experienz nearly 25 years of experience in tech innovation. Previously, Ashok has started more than 10 technology companies in the USA and UK, notably as a member of Virtusa Corp which sold for US$2Billion in 2021, and as Chief Architect for eDocs which sold to Oracle for US$115Million in 2004.
