Merald.io
Healthcare disparities have existed for decades, and festers in a number of startling metrics. Data shows that Black Americans can expect shorter life expectancy, financial barriers to care, implicit bias that leads to suboptimal care and misdiagnosis and recently pandemic level disparities that included higher infection rates, hospitalizations and death due to COVID-19. The weight of these issues puts pressure on an already economically stressed healthcare system. The high cost of mental health disparities is 278 billion dollars and in our broken systems individuals fall through the cracks leading to more premature deaths of black Americans and higher rates of PTSD related to discrimination and suicide.
Our solution is to deploy a double-sided marketplace to address critical and pressing issues that affect the lives of millions of black Americans. Our platform will be patient centered, secure, equipped with personal assessments and symptom tracking. Subscribers will have the opportunity to connect with their care team virtually and include innovative care approaches to augment teletherapy. And finally, we will harness the power of machine learning to provide deeper, more nuanced insights through data. Predictive analytics will enable us to uncover hidden patterns, develop personalized treatment paths, and ultimately enhance the quality of healthcare delivery.
The vision for my company is to address the pressing needs within the current state of black mental health. The 7 million black Americans that have reported mental illness, can expect from us access to quality clinical care and the millions more in search of culturally responsive care, will have an opportunity to find psychiatrists, therapists, life coaches and clergy to connect to. Deploying solutions to address financial barriers and leveraging telehealth to bridge the gap in underserved or resource limited communities. Addressing the mental health care disparities within the black community would save the US 131 billion dollars.
As founder + CEO I bring along over 20 years in medical education and executive leadership, I have built innovative programs and contributed to catalyzing new ideas in psychiatry in my previous role as the deputy director for the division of education for the american psychiatric association.
The team has decades of expertise in clinical practice, innovative approaches to behavioral care, digital tech evaluation, entrepreneurship and business.
Brief bios of the team can be found here
- Collecting, analyzing, curating, and making sense of big data to ensure high-quality inputs, outputs, and insights.
- Creating and streamlining human-centered processes for delivering, providing equitable access to, managing and paying for healthcare.
- Concept: An idea for building a product, service, or business model that is being explored for implementation
- Business Model (e.g. product-market fit, strategy & development)
- Financial (e.g. accounting practices, pitching to investors)
- Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)
- Product / Service Distribution (e.g. delivery, logistics, expanding client base)
- Technology (e.g. software or hardware, web development/design)
Merald.io is an innovative addition to the mental health marketplace because it addresses the issue of access to black mental health care providers and leverages data to improve treatment guidelines to optimize best practices. The data will also assist resource limited hospitals to ensure a digital safety is placed under vulnerable populations.
It can change the market to addressing two key components, access and improved outcomes that will in turn alleviate a economically stressed healthcare system.
Data collected will improve treatment guidelines which will serve the global market through Medical Education, supporting doctors and healthcare teams with newly released research.
- Patient provider match making based on patients assessment.
- Utilize AI to push recommend relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and self-help resources on the platform.
- Implementing machine learning algorithms to predict mental health outcomes based on user input and interaction with the platform.
- Identify early warning signs of mental health crisis and offer appropriate interventions in advance of crisis.
- Aggregate anonymized data for research purposes, with strict adherence to privacy and ethical guidelines.
- Collaborate with mental health professionals and researchers to conduct studies on the effectiveness of the app in the Black community.
Data privacy is a main concern within the black community. It would be critical for Merald.io to implement robust data privacy and security measures to build trust among users. We plan to clearly communicate how users data will be used and the reason (improved patients outcomes) and protected. We will collect user data through opt-in mechanisms and ensure compliance with privacy regulations like HIPAA, ISO.
For next year, launch the MVP with our academic hospital partners.
Within 5 years, scale the business via engaged channel partners, collaborate with government entities to support local clinics and begin a data exchange network to support updates in treatment guidelines related to major depressive disorders in the black community.
Overall, improving access and education in the black community to reduce rates in suicide, racial PTSD, anxiety and depression.
- For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
2- Full time
2- Contract
5- Advisors
1 year and 2 month.
The business is certified as minority and woman owned.
We ensure language, images used and outreach represent differently abled individuals, LGBTQ+, and an array of ages.
We will ensure our professional network not only reaches our key demographic areas but represent an array of ages.
When developing AI systems, consider the potential impact on marginalized and underrepresented communities. This includes addressing biases, data disparities, and potential discriminatory outcomes.
We start by value creation, piloting the MVP with partnering academic teaching hospitals and collaborating with our engaged channel partners such as US Black Chambers, NAACP, Amazon Reach, the advocacy branches of the national alliance on mental illness and influencer marketing. We will scale the business with a double sided marketplace supporting overburdened private practices to help ease physician burnout and serving as an expert in residence for government entities like ARPHA-h.
We will have a tiered revenue model, Our patient marketplace includes a monthly subscription of 9.99 and a yearly option of 100.00. Health systems can also access features and extend their practices for 4,000 per month. For booked and completed therapy sessions we will charge a 10 percent commission and as we grow and create a data lake we will begin monetizing data collected.
$20,000- Operating costs include operations fees for marketing and legal services, business planning and add ons for the platform (ie. zoom)
Projected costs for next year is $175k - Which includes development of the MVP, help desks and implementation of Go to market strategy which includes geo-fencing, annual conference exhibiting, and the addition of a grant writer on the team.
Our ask is 100K -The funding will support the development of the technology and support stack for the platform, insurance certification, our marketing strategy to enter the market with intention and early strategic hires a grant writer and community manager.
I am very excited about the lab space as NY is one of our primary markets. We have been included in BE NYC and would like to also have a better proximity to interact with founders based and serving customers in NY. As a life long learner I am excited about the education provided, especially related to market strategy, and platform development/testing.
This opportunity would not only support but further accelerate our mission to develop quality mental health care for the black community.
I am also excited about the prospect of joining an ecosystem of founders and mentors that are building impact driven technology.
Founder + CEO