NJAMHAA News - October 2021

October 2021 14 W hile many types of technologies are created each year for providing or supplementing mental health care and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment, few, if any, could claim that they are developed based on behavioral science. By contrast, GoMo Health ® has developed a proprietary, evidence based behavioral science, BehavioralRx ® , and incorporated it into a continually evolving, personalized tool for individuals to increase their engagement with clinicians and receive around-the-clock support that greatly augments the treatment they receive in person from their counselors and care teams. “The overarching theme of what distinguishes GoMo Health is that we are a deeply scientific organization that uses evidence-based techniques to inform the technology. We are not technologists working with clinicians,” said Bob Gold, MS, Founder and Chief Behavioral Technologist. “The proof is in our partners,” he added, citing Hope Young, MT-BC, a nationally renowned music therapist and Founder and Owner of The Center for Music Therapy, Inc., in Austin, TX, as an example. “The Center is using GoMo to deliver music therapy to clients’ in their lived environments. They have a wealth of resources and we have the ability to deliver them in a behaviorally sound way, in concert with people’s daily lives, responsibilities, preferences and existing factors,” Gold explained. In fact, Gold and his team are collaborating with The Center for Music Therapy in the development of GoMo Music™, a collection of unique, scientifically curated compositions developed with top composers from around the world to stimulate physiological responses. “The use of music in behavioral therapy is twofold. When GoMo Health suggests a way to relax for a client, we can personalize it with tones, tunes and binomial beats and suggest that the individual take a walk while listening to these specific GoMo Music recommendations,” Gold explained. “Music can also be integrated into the context of GoMo Health, which enables counselors and music therapists to curate play lists and incorporate them into their treatment programs for clients’ use at home.” GoMo Health recently launched a project with Rimrock, an SUD treatment provider in Montana with clients who are incarcerated and others who are released from jail. “By providing more ‘touches’, better long-term outcomes will be achieved,” according to Deena Cohen, MPA, CADC, CTTS, WTS, Director of Global Market Development at GoMo Health. For example, in traditional intensive outpatient programs, clients commonly interact with their counselors three days each week; with GoMo Health, these connections increase to five or six days each week. “Clinicians can’t be with their clients 24 hours a day, especially during COVID. The GoMo add-on enhances what clinicians are trying to do,” Cohen said. With GoMo Health, clients receive personalized messages every day with links to related resources, such as videos about yoga and other strategies for resisting urges to use substances. They also can send keywords to indicate the type of support they need, which they then receive immediately. For example, a joke or inspiring story will be sent in response to “SMILE” and when a client texts “PEER”, a peer recovery specialist fromRimrock is immediately notified to contact the client directly. The behavioral and physical impacts of COVID-19 underscore the importance of holistic care, and GoMo Health is a powerful tool for meeting this need. “When we will finally be coming out of COVID, people will have to get re-acclimated,” Gold said. “Many challenges already exist for individuals with mental illnesses and SUD. With COVID, these issues are compounded. Workers, clients and communities are all under more stress. Now is the time for peer coaches and counselors to use GoMo Health because their clients need a higher level of ‘touch’ because of this situation,” Gold said. Fostering Integrated Behavioral and Physical Health Care GoMo Health is being used to augment not only mental health and SUD treatment, but also physical health care. Through partnerships GoMo Health Augments Treatment, Fosters GoMo Health enables clinicians to practice precision health by providing longitudinal real-time data of what’s going on in patients’ lives. - Bob Gold, MS October 2021