nView Health CEO John Letter's Statement on the State of the Union Address

Placing mental illness on a level playing field with physical illness is the first step in solving the national mental health crisis.

nView Health's CEO John Letter released the statement below following President Joe Biden’s State of the Union (SOTU) address:

We are pleased that mental health was a significant area of focus during the SOTU. Fixing our country's broken mental health system is a bipartisan issue and one deserving of substantially more attention and resources. We appreciated President Biden acknowledging the 'full parity between physical and mental healthcare' while calling for greater support for mental health and other critical services that can help all Americans, including children, those battling addiction, and veterans. We also found it encouraging that President Biden identified some of the reasons why people are struggling with their mental health, including the effects of the pandemic, bullying, opioids, outdated rules, and barriers to care, including cost.

The fact sheet issued by the White House outlining a strategy to address the national mental health crisis is also encouraging. It identifies several worthwhile steps that can help put us on a path to repairing our broken system. Those that stood out include investments to better reach and support underserved communities, address burnout and strengthen resiliency for healthcare workers, expand the availability of evidence-based services, and expand the country's capacity to meet Americans' mental health needs through technological and scientific innovation. These are all positives.

We hope the White House not only follows through on these steps but considers others that can lead to more meaningful dialogue and allow us to achieve the concrete changes our mental healthcare system sorely needs. These should include the following:

Increased focus on and resources allocated to destigmatizing mental illness
Assessment of the existing mechanisms used to quickly identify, evaluate, and diagnose individuals with mental illness
A continued movement toward reliance upon evidence-based tools to empower measurement-based care
An overhaul of the behavioral health payment system
Evaluation of the usage of and reliance upon medications
Legislation to support these and other objectives

nView Headshots - 141x200 (4) The time is now for us to turn words into action and transform our mental health system into one that is safer, stronger, and more inclusive. nView looks forward to playing a role in helping achieve the necessary makeover of our nation's mental healthcare system. We hope everyone involved with the delivery of behavioral healthcare will join us.

ABOUT NVIEW HEALTH

nView Health is the premier provider of evidence-based software and solutions used by research organizations and healthcare professionals around the world to help them identify, treat, and monitor mental health disorders, a critical requirement for measurement-based care. nView is the exclusive licensee worldwide for a broad array of behavioral health screening solutions, structured interviews, and post-diagnosis severity measurement scales to monitor patient outcomes. To learn more, please visit nview.com or follow nView Health on LinkedIn or Twitter.