Nearly half of Americans would accept 24/7 AI monitoring of their facial expressions, voice patterns, and typing behaviors for early mental health intervention—a striking finding that challenges assumptions about privacy in behavioral healthcare. Andy Flanagan, CEO of Iris Telehealth, discusses groundbreaking consumer research revealing the complex relationship between AI acceptance and human oversight in mental health care. With 73% demanding humans make final emergency decisions, the data exposes a critical gap between consumer readiness, regulatory frameworks, and provider capabilities. Flanagan explores what this means for healthcare technology investment strategies as behavioral health AI moves from pilot to production.
Andy Flanagan, CEO, Iris Telehealth
Megan Antonelli, Chief Executive Officer, HealthIMPACT Live
Â
00:00:00 Intro: Welcome to digital health talks. Each week we meet with healthcare leaders making an immeasurable difference in equity, access and quality. Hear about what tech is worth investing in and what isn't as we focus on the innovations that deliver. Join Megan Antonelli, Jenny Sharp and Shahid Shah for a weekly no BS deep dive on what's really making an impact in healthcare.
00:00:30 Megan Antonelli: Hi everybody. Welcome to Health Impact Digital Health Talks. This is Megan Antonelli and today we're talking about one of the, you know, most important questions really in healthcare and the adoption of AI and telemedicine, which is, you know, how much are consumers and patients interested and wanting to be, um, you know, involved in and have AI participate. So today, our guest is Andy Flanagan, CEO of Iris telehealth and one of our one of the nation's leading behavioral health telepsychiatry providers. Andy brings a rare perspective at the intersection of clinical care, consumer trust and AI enabled mental health delivery. Today, we'll talk about what it means for health system leaders, CIOs and investors, and behavioral health and of course, patients in terms of the implementation and deployment of these amazing technologies. Hi, Andy. How are you?
00:01:25 Andy Flanagan: Hi, Megan. Thanks for having me.
00:01:28 Megan Antonelli: Yeah, so glad to meet you and have you on the show. Um, you know, tell our audience a little bit about Irish telehealth and and what you guys do.
00:01:36 Andy Flanagan: Sure. Iris is one of the earliest telehealth companies specifically, exclusively focused on telepsychiatry. Uh, we employ over six hundred clinicians. We operate in forty five states. We're in emergency departments and medical surgical floors. And of course, we do a tremendous amount of outpatient therapy. So we really are seeing all patient journeys, all demographics and all diagnoses, and as a result, we're focused on efficiency, clinical outcomes, how do we use technology to the fullest and a safe and responsible manner? How do we continue to provide access to people that need it?
00:02:14 Megan Antonelli: Yeah. That's great. I think that the application of telehealth, certainly in Telepsychiatry, was one of the first and and certainly one of the most widely adopted. And as you're, you know, sort of looking at the market now, um, you know, I know you've you've done a lot of research in terms of consumer acceptance of AI monitoring and mental health risk detection. Tell us a little bit about what you found.
00:02:38 Andy Flanagan: Yes. Fascinating. Uh, first of all, there's there's a point at which we all are comfortable with AI until we're not. And that moment is is the AI cliff. It's what I call it. It's the moment we say, okay, hold on a second. It's a little bit too much. Amazingly, um, over half of us are comfortable with twenty four by seven monitoring of how we're doing passively. So imagine every time we're on our phone, an AI agent is saying, how are you doing, Andy? How are you doing? And it's looking for indicators of stress, anxiety, depression. That's all. That's all capable today. The important thing is that if we go back just two years, the percentage of people that would say I'm comfortable with that probably be ten percent. So there's a huge maturation about our knowledge and comfort level of what's really going on here. Now, at the same time, ninety three percent of us want a human in the middle in an emergency situation making a decision. So there's the cliff. Monitor how I'm doing. Give me some clues. Tell me. But if it's a clinical decision, I want a human in a nonemergency solution. It's seventy three percent. So at the least seventy three percent of the humans would say, it's okay for you to monitor me, but don't make a recommendation. And that's a very responsible maturation of this technology.
00:04:04 Megan Antonelli: Yeah. No, it's so interesting. I mean, when you think about, you know, I immediately think about sort of my customer service calls in my life, not necessarily my therapy calls, but customer service calls where maybe a therapist intervention would have been a good thing.
00:04:18 Andy Flanagan: Yeah. Yes.
00:04:21 Megan Antonelli: But you know, when you think of the sentiment and the, you know, being able to sort of assess people's emotions, right? I mean, and and there's no way that, you know, AT&T wasn't doing that at some point when I was on the phone with them talking about my cell phone. You know.
00:04:37 Andy Flanagan: For sure. That's right. For sure.
00:04:39 Megan Antonelli: Right. But, um, those applications now to what we can, you know, sort of see and, and obviously with sort of mental health and telepsychiatry, but also just assessing where there might be that, that need to, to kind of bring the patient over to that, that human Intervention. Right. So tell us a little bit about to go back a little towards sort of when Iris telehealth was founded and kind of the gaps in, in the market that really, you know, kind of brought, brought you guys to where you were, you know, providing this need.
00:05:15 Andy Flanagan: Yeah. So we started out working with community mental health centers and federally qualified health centers. So think about heavy Medicaid, Medicare, patient, you know, populations, high acuity polychronic, um, you know, both urban and rural, really. But the fundamental problem we solve is a lack of access. Somebody has a need, but it takes four to six months to get to somebody. Right? So by partnering with these community organizations that led us to the health system market, naturally, specifically the emergency department first and then outpatient, and it really fits our own journey that we all live. You know, we come in and out of health systems networks for oncology or, you know, musculoskeletal, whatever our journey might bring us. And the behavioral health is ever present. You know, it's like our physical health, right? It's always there. But the network for behavioral health is much more fragile. It's not as much money in behavioral health. Clinicians don't make as much and therefore there are fewer of them. And so Iris, really early on twenty thirteen, you know, started solving this problem about, um, in a clinically efficient and effective manner, providing access remotely, digitally, fractionally. And and really, our customers have told us, you know, really almost all of our growth comes from our existing customers partners because there's just so much work out there. Unfortunately, so many of us want help and there just aren't enough clinicians. So yeah, so so the online prescribing, like we were doing this digitally back in twenty thirteen, very close and present around the DEA and X waivers and a lot of the enabling safety protocols. Right. And really, both psychiatrists and licensed clinical social workers all can in in a peer reviewed, clinically effective way, be as efficient and effective in person as you can virtually. It's one of the very few practice areas where that's true.
00:07:21 Megan Antonelli: Mhm. Yeah. And I mean I think as our sort of generations become more digital, it's even in some case more effective. Right. I mean I think that, you know, the access and the um, almost preferred method, you know, I mean, when I think of certainly adolescents and kids now in terms of, uh, where are you guys available everywhere. Is it a.
00:07:44 Andy Flanagan: We're in we're in forty three states today. Um, we see, you know, forty percent of our panels are pediatrics, geriatric. We see all levels of acuity. We're in emergency departments, as I mentioned. So, you know, we really have a very broad footprint. We're one of the few groups that actually serve entire populations. So we can work with the health system or a community and say, we can support your entire patient panel. A lot of our peers who are doing fantastic work, you know, this isn't a competitive zero sum marketplace. So they're they're respected peers. You know, they'll focus on OCD or they'll focus on pediatrics or they'll focus on geriatrics. And that's high quality work and very hard to do. And they do it in a great way. You know, our job is to really be a generalist as good in each of those areas, and that allows us to be a partner of scale so we can work with an entire health system across all service lines, all locations across multi-state. And so we, we, we skew towards the larger end of the market, if you will, in terms of our footprint.
00:08:51 Megan Antonelli: Yeah, no it is. And it's such a, I mean one such a hard position to staff within the hospital organization. But then to serve, you know, sort of those multiple markets and communities. Um, yes. And so in terms of how you're applying AI, in terms of the monitoring and kind of how you've got there. Tell us a little bit about about that.
00:09:12 Andy Flanagan: Yeah. So I'm primarily a software person by background and education and, and so I've uh, very carefully leading a medical group been very judicious about where software has a job. It's not easy for me, but it's a very strong team, thankfully. You know, we really started in the simple area that in behavioral health, we have to recognize that the data and the infrastructure and the resources, the consultants, the revenue cycle, resources. It's like two thousand and five. The money just didn't flow here. And so in many cases, you have community organizations that can't pull an accounts payable report. It takes them three days so they don't have the fundamental clinical outcome data already linked in that's present. They're not always using Epic or Oracle or you know and and so we started there. We started with analytics. We started with a data lake house. We started helping people just get the the KPIs that matter in managing your referral queue. How long are people waiting? Are you assessing the demand inside of your queue? If you have somebody who might escalate to the Ed, we probably want to have some resources that could deescalate them. So when we implement, we take these patient journeys. We pull them apart from a data perspective. And then we build a medical group around what we learn as opposed to saying it's one size fits all. Just do it the way you know. Just see first in first out. So we started with analytics and infrastructure. We then moved on to machine learning algorithms for to predict Ed utilization. And now you start to say, boy, who would not like to avoid an Ed visit, right? And so now we're partnering with our our current customers on how do we deploy a predictive algorithm, machine learning algorithm across our entire patient panel employees and otherwise to provide proactive resources? That's not how behavioral health has been deployed or it's a reactive science, right? So, um, we have stayed away from ambient listening because we use the EHRs of our of our customers, and they are making those technology decisions. So we believe we use anything that's already paid for. We'll use that technology. We don't want to add cost to that story. We're not a software company. We want to be. The key for us is that we're completely integrated into the care workflow. And so this idea, most of the market refers out to a third party group. And then the patient goes and the clinical data stays over there. We believe all the data needs to be in a central store where the PCP and all the other specialists live. Even though it's behavioral.
00:12:02 Megan Antonelli: Oh, wow. So, you know, in essence, you're, um, you know, taking the data that's given by the partner provider that you're working with. Um, and then how does that come into this risk assessment? And, and, um, you know, that next level of AI involvement that we were talking about.
00:12:21 Andy Flanagan: So we developed the algorithm and calibrate the algorithm nationally so that we can say out of two hundred data elements, we know the nineteen that are most material that predict Ed utilization. And so you take an eight hundred thousand patient panel or a two thousand patient panel, and you apply this algorithm and you say, these are the thirty eight people, or these are the eight thousand people that are likely to present. Let's make sure that they're getting care. Is there any evidence of any therapy? Any any medication. And you want to find you know, you're triaging. So you're looking for somebody with no evidence of any access whatsoever. Wow. That's where you usually see prior utilization because, you know, homelessness, uh, transportation issues, all sorts of things that go on to, uh, socioeconomic determinants of health. And so that so that algorithm we built and then we tune it for the patient panel that we work with. And these things are self-learning, right? The more you use it, the better you get at it. And the real key for us is to match the clinician supply to this demand. So when you inject a whole bunch of more demand, you say, well, wait a minute, I don't have the clinicians. And so it's this tricky balance, Megan, like you're always titrating back and forth because the goal is you have you have to be profitable, right? No money, no margin, no mission. Right. You have to make a ton of money, but you just can't have negative money. You can't have no money.
00:13:56 Megan Antonelli: Right? Well, especially I mean, when it comes to kind of the critical behavioral health investments that that, you know, leadership is making. You know, you've got to show sort of value behind that, right. And so it sounds like that's here. Now going back to the discussion of the study and kind of consumer acceptance of all of this and and where that fits in. Um, you know, obviously there's also a number of regulations happening and, you know, sort of behavior, you know, change, change in terms of acceptance, in terms of where people want to get their health care in general. Um, telehealth and, and sort of acceptance around that. Um, so tell us a little bit about what you're seeing, both with the, the research that you've been doing. But then let's talk a little bit more about the broad picture and how those two things might dovetail.
00:14:43 Andy Flanagan: Yes. So so telehealth has moved into a mainstream modality for health systems and community organizations. And, and as consumers. Right. We, you know, we'll accept it for dermatology or for primary care. And so all these things are self the, you know, reinforcing behaviors if you will. But on the health system side and the community side, they are deploying telehealth across primary care and dentistry. Like it's it's part of how they do business. Part of it is it reduces physician burnout. You know, they can see patients from home. They get a chance not commuting every single day. And that provider retention and satisfaction is so important, right, for everybody. On the clinical side, we're seeing a lot of evidence supporting the idea, certainly in behavioral health, because that's been well established that it's as effective. But you're starting to see care pathways being nibbled at. You know, take the GOP ones, you know, the follow on monthly prescription call is a perfect use case of how you feeling? How are you doing? How's your weight loss? Okay, I'll renew the prescription. It's a relatively safe, you know, and so they can, you know, Therapy. And so these little edge cases, um, clinically are growing dramatically. They're growing quickly. And so the infrastructure, not wars, but the providers, the early people in telehealth that had carts and software and, you know, we see them now as public companies that are kind of struggling. Right. Well, it's because it's become ubiquitous. It's no longer a proprietary technology, which is a great thing for us. So that's the first thing that telehealth is moving mainstream. And I think that, you know, the fee and telehealth capabilities and the extensions, all of that is a bipartisan story. So I'm confident that that train will continue to go. The Rural health transformation fifty billion dollars investment. If you look at the use of proceeds for most of the RFPs from the state, infrastructure for telehealth, infrastructure for data, digital health, digital engagement. So now you start to see over a five year period, a ton of money showing up. Right. A billion dollars a year for every state, for rural. It's a little bit like, you know, the high tech act for EHRs. This is going to really drive significant penetration of innovation into the rural communities, which needs it more than anybody else, right? You know, we have partners in, you know, border region, Texas, where there's a four hundred mile catchment area. You're going to drive for an hour therapy session. Like that doesn't make sense, right? Two hundred miles. You're not going to do that. So tell a, you know, in the rural health funds I think are going to have a huge reinforcing, you know, kind of high tide for everything. And it includes AI, you know, the administrative use case of AI and revenue cycle. Um, you know, you just can't state it. It's it's going to print money, uh, for, for people that should be paid appropriate reimbursement and certainly on the clinicians ambient listening is, you know, five minutes per appointment, twenty appointments a day. You know, the pajama time where they're at home finishing their orders, as opposed to saying, here's the automated summary, I get to review it. I'm done with one and two to three minutes, not twenty. Huge lift, not not necessarily accruing just to the bottom line of the health system because it's you can fit one more appointment. I think the bigger lift is it's really affecting physician satisfaction and retention. So those are the kind of pillars, if you will, like. Mainstream telehealth and AI use cases are happening in so many different places. And every time it happens, you know, the nurse and the patient are also consumers. They're on with their clinicians the next day remotely. It's a self reinforcing wheel. We're seeing this. Yeah. So I'm pretty optimistic that we're on the right path here.
00:18:44 Megan Antonelli: Yeah it's an exciting time for sure. I mean it's just it it does. It feels like that high tech act in that, you know, for so long it's been, why are they going to do it? Where is the payment? You know who's going to pay for it or why would they pay for it? It's counterintuitive to. And now that we've sort of hit this sort of threshold of well the patients consumers want it, it is the sort of standard preliminary, you know, way beginning of care pathways. And then, you know, as you said, in terms of sort of that follow up compliance, there's just so many applications. And then the AI kind of making it all possible and easier and a bit cheaper, um, in some cases, uh, you know, making the sort of the, the threshold for it to happen, just that, you know, that much easier. I mean, I think just watching CES today, like Doctor Marty Mccary's on the floor, you know, sort of walking, walking the floor, talking about, you know, how progressive the AI, the, the FDA is being in terms of AI adoption, you know, and they, you know, sort of putting themselves ahead of other, um, uh, segments of the government in terms of adoption. And, you know, it is a rare thing to see healthcare.
00:19:56 Andy Flanagan: You never would have thought of that, right? You never would expect that those words to come out from that source. You're exactly right.
00:20:03 Megan Antonelli: And but but going back to kind of that the importance of and not only the need for, but the consumer demand for human oversight in that and the human intervention. Talk a little bit about, you know, where that fits in with the iris platform. Yeah. And how you guys are looking at kind of rolling that, that out.
00:20:25 Andy Flanagan: Yeah. So, you know, we have our own medical malpractice. Like we're fully accountable for our outcomes. And uh, as such, especially like in emergency department work, these are fraught moments. Super high, uh, intensity of of care. And so, you know, we we think about it like everybody else does. It's been a huge lift for us in terms of understanding capacity modeling, understanding patient journeys, and matching clinician types. So, you know, we need a triple board child psychiatrist. Forty percent of our Ed visits are for pediatrics. And so, you know, you have to kind of have these models that say who should I hire and retain? Because it's not like you can just hire one tomorrow. You know, these are long tenured employees at Iris. And, you know, we're very careful in who we hire. So we have to be very thoughtful. So the technology has enabled us to be a profitable company in spite of low reimbursement, Medicaid, Medicare, um, a very challenging, geographically diverse customer base and, um, you know, high risk patient journeys. Those three usually mean either you get paid a lot of money, which isn't the case, or you have to be super efficient. And that's what we're really focused on. And so Iris has always been highly innovative. Right now we're working on, um, for new solutions as we come to this year that we think will will match where the the patient journeys really are most underserved. And we're leading with digital technology. We're leading with analytics and insights and AI, machine learning as well. If we think about the access model that CME put out, the RFA and, you know, I think two hundred and fifty companies have indicated we were one of them to apply for that model. So you've got, you know, in behavioral health, the four tracks, you know, you know, kidney cardiology MSK and behavioral health are the four areas they want to work on. Innovation. Obviously we're focused on behavioral health thirty million Medicaid lives are involved in this program. And you know they have to opt in and all those things of course. But it explicitly. The RFA explicitly talks about how can you use technology to produce better outcomes and better patient experiences. I mean, for the federal government to publish that the RFA was published two weeks before the deadline, they said they would publish it. When was the last time that happened? Never. Right. So yeah. So we we see a really bright future. Um, we're really careful. Um, and we are not really working at all on AI in a clinical decision making moment. There's still so many opportunities administratively and coordination, scheduling, patient activation, follow up things that, you know, there's just as much value there. And, uh, you know, we really we really kind of view that moment of the encounter as a sacred moment. And we just keep it in the middle, and we're just trying to optimize everything that goes into and comes out of that patient experience with the provider.
00:23:50 Megan Antonelli: Right. Which then I imagine, you know, and both sort of handles the resistance from the provider side and from the patient side. Right. And that you're kind of intervening in the places where there's a lower value, you know, sort of to that, you know, transaction anyway. Right.
00:24:10 Andy Flanagan: And it's value. And you're exactly right, Megan, because you know, how many of us when we're having a, uh, an experience scheduling and we're texting, how many of us said after the third text, really? It wasn't clear. The first three texts that wasn't clear. You know, I mean, we all it's back to your phone call with AT&T, right? Like, we all know what that looks like.
00:24:34 Megan Antonelli: And and there is that, you know, that point where you're like, okay, now I want the agent, you know, now I want the agent, you know, so so I imagine it happening in this side too. Now, now when you get, you know, on the side of things where you guys are, at least my understanding is you have some monitoring of of voice tone and facial expressions and things like that. There's that technology that's at play as well. Correct.
00:24:58 Andy Flanagan: Yeah. And so that is inside the ears that we use. And so that decision would be made by the health system and we adopt it uniformly. So so our clinicians are actively using every AI platform that our clients have adopted. And so as a result, because we, you know, we have hundreds of partners, three hundred and twenty five partners. And like one health system is one partner. So in terms of the scale of our sites of care, it's pretty broad. We probably have one of the most diverse medical groups in terms of experience with different AI platforms. All of them. Right. Would be the short answer. Right. And you know, we spent a tremendous amount of time in grand rounds where joint Commission accredited new chart reviews. We're doing trainings all the time just to help them, you know, kind of feel comfortable in the moment, leverage the technology. So.
00:25:55 Megan Antonelli: Right.
00:25:55 Andy Flanagan: Got it. It's it's not a free thing. It's just, you know, you have to know what it's doing.
00:26:01 Megan Antonelli: Right, right. And so within that, your medical groups actually are exposed to multiple different systems across these different hospital partners that they have. Well, that would be an interesting you know.
00:26:16 Andy Flanagan: It is.
00:26:17 Megan Antonelli: And that's on your own class.
00:26:19 Andy Flanagan: Well, that's why we did this study, right. We said, you know what? We we should help people understand what's happening. We didn't do this because we're selling AI software, right? We're not doing this because there's some value in us promoting AI, you know, economically or beneficially. We just said we need to help our industry understand what's happening. And we have a very unique vantage point. So let's go ahead and conduct the study and share the results freely. And I appreciate you amplifying this because we want people to understand like what's really going on. And so that's.
00:26:53 Megan Antonelli: Yeah. Yeah. No that's great. I mean it is. And it, you know, it's such a unique window into sort of the adoption and kind of the patient and also provider adoption too, where we'll talk about it kind of abstractly in terms of what, what do they like, what do they not like. How far do they go. But you guys are really seeing that. So that's um, you know, that's great. And it's great that you're, you're sharing it, um, from a competitive standpoint when, you know, when you look at that, are there particular areas that, um, you know, are interesting in terms of where you see success on the hospitals deploying this and, and sort of, uh, what people like versus what they don't.
00:27:34 Andy Flanagan: You know, um, the idea of data, the idea of, of technology is rarely native to the, Our peer group of companies, they're usually founded by a clinician run by a clinician. It's a medically oriented, direct to consumer. Um, it's much more of a traditional practice model. And because we're not direct to consumer, we're B2B, right? We're we're we're embedding ourselves into community mental health centers and fqhcs and health systems. We've really taken the lens that our, our, our managed service organization, our MSO, you know, it's a friendly PC model. So you have the medical group and you have the MSO that does all the administrative services. It gives us the right to bring solutions that we think would beneficially help everyone be more efficient, have better clinical outcomes, and as a result, be financially successful. So what we find is that we in fact do we have excellent clinical outcomes. And score is ninety one. And our clinician, you know, our customer or partner satisfaction is very high. Sixty four. So, you know, we think these reduce friction and they help people see around the corner and better utilize the resources which produces a better, more loyal patient experience. And and that works like I think Iris telehealth has an excellent brand. I think we have an excellent reputation. And I think our entire eight hundred employee group works really, really hard to make that way. It's incredibly difficult. I, I really am in awe of of our company and our employees because we're doing work that you would not normally associate with being a behavioral health medical group. Why would you build a lake house? Why why are you doing gold tables for that? Like what? But in the end, it's part of this bigger strategy of actually being the next generation level of efficiency and in and engage a higher level of penetration of the penetration. The people that need access in your area, in your catchment area, our health systems can't get in many cases or even more fqhcs the resources to do that work. They don't have the money. There aren't consulting companies knocking on the door every day saying, hey, I'll do this, this pilot for you. I'll do an MVP for free because I want you to be my customer. No, it's for free. So yeah. So I'm really proud of the team for investing in that because it is really, um, you know, we don't really charge for that work. We just do it. Yeah.
00:30:15 Megan Antonelli: Well, I mean, it is and it's so when you think of all of the, you know, a sort of windows and, and unique vantage points that that companies do have and, and that they often do not share that information, you know, inherently by policy and you know that it is a, that it is a, um, a really, uh, you know, great thing that you guys are doing to be able to kind of provide that window both to your partners, but also more broadly in terms of adoption. And it's a critical time, right? Because we are in this, you know, sort of middle of talking about, you know, what will happen with, you know, health care at home and telehealth and across across states as well as this, you know, the rural health initiatives. So, you know, there's a lot of exciting things happening, um, in that in that space. And we've always in, in both of these areas talked about the obstacles, right. I mean, the state by state regulations and, and things that make it very difficult. And you guys have kind of weathered that storm for the last, you know, almost fifteen years. Um, and as things are finally maybe taking a slightly more common sense approach to, to this, um, you know, there to be able to help the others as they, uh, weather that. Um, but I'd love your thoughts kind of on what, what the, what the outlook looks like for the next, say, eighteen maybe. Actually, when I wrote the question, it was eighteen to twenty four months, but at the pace at which things are being announced, I feel like maybe we could go eighteen to twenty four weeks and it would be a conversation.
00:31:51 Andy Flanagan: Well, well, I agree with you on the timing. I mean, we are busy and we're not just busy clinically, we're busy building, uh, we're going to introduce more solutions this year than we have in the life of the company. So and, you know, we've we've been historically profitable for the vast majority of our time and profitable for the last three years. And we've put that money back to work into innovation. And so, um, the tailwinds of right, the access model, um, are significant. They're really just as we saw in May of last year, the hue and cry appropriately of people, you know, twenty two million people losing Medicaid like, oh my goodness, it's a nuclear winter, right? And now on the other side we see, oh my goodness. This is an opportunity to really invest in scalable architecture and infrastructure that hasn't been done in twenty years, thirty years really. And so um, that that's what really keeps me going. And, you know, when I talk to state Medicaid directors or I talk to system leaders or Fqhc CEOs, um, I am hearing them feel like the clouds have parted, that there's an opportunity. And so then you get back to, okay, so what are you going to do with it? And I see teams moving. They're doing things. They're innovating. They've had the plan on the shelf. They've not been able to have the money. And now people have the right to actually innovate in behavioral health. And so I'm incredibly excited by that. And we get to see as a sidecar and be a part of many of those projects, which I love. And um, we will continue to curate lessons learned. And, you know, we sponsor a lot of customer led webcasts just for people to talk about best practices and promising practices, because we think it's like part of our job to to get those stories out there, not proprietary stories in any way. So yeah, I really like, you know, the community of practice that that's really starting to crank up in behavioral health.
00:34:01 Megan Antonelli: Yeah, it's exciting to see, you know, I kind of came to healthcare myself from the behavioral health side of things and, you know, actually did several events in Medicaid and Medicaid managed care and then behavioral health outcomes and, you know, kind of dovetailing to predictive modeling and then insurance and all of this. And it's like it all sort of is coming together in this space now. Um, you know, and I guess to some degree, it's AI, um, that is helping that happen because, you know, even we did, um, some, some work around social determinants of health, you know, years ago and felt, you know, it was like there was the interest, there was the common sense behind it, but the financials just didn't add up. But now that the technology is cheaper and more powerful, some of those add up. Now in a way that's making it possible. And it's exciting to see. And I feel like you might have just answered the last question, but we'll go to it again so you can kind of reinforce it even more, or if you have another one. But we always close with kind of what's good in healthcare, right. That's since since the pandemic, when we had to find as many silver linings as we could. We started with this question. So we still end with it now, but kind of what's good and what's keeping you most kind of optimistic about where we're headed?
00:35:19 Andy Flanagan: I think that in every encounter and in every system I've worked with, they are offering virtual encounters concurrent to physical. At the point of scheduling natively, it's not an option. Or if you can't, it's the very first question do you want a virtual or do you want a physical? That's the right answer. Right. Consumer directed choice at the earliest moment of engagement. And so that's the one thing. And I know I experienced that as a as a consumer. Right. And you know, it doesn't matter what the system is. It's really become pervasive. And so I that's the one thing as long as that is the lens, it means that the people that are thinking about us as consumers and patients are listening. They're listening and they're giving options that we want. And we've talked about consumer driven healthcare for how many decades. Right. Like but there's like a data point. There's a real tangible you can look at it and see it and go, oh my goodness. That's a consumer driven behavior, right? So so cool.
00:36:26 Megan Antonelli: So now and it is it's interesting. I mean and I think behavioral health and how I think what will be really interesting is to see how behavioral health compares to other, you know, other specialties and other, you know, sort of elements of that because I think that, um, when I think about behavioral health and kind of sort of, you know, therapy and management and that, that, that access and the time out. I mean, I live in Los Angeles, the time to go to doctor's offices is, you know, it's a three hour endeavor, no matter how close or how far, you know, rural or not. Um, and so that, you know, the convenience element of what's so important to all of this and what what makes consumers, you know, sort of make those choices is so important. And obviously, there's a spectrum of of the level to which people can have that choice and when. Um, but, uh, it's good to see that Iris is, is kind of there and available, um, throughout that spectrum. So, um, well, it's been great to great to hear about it. Um, tell our audience, like, you know, of healthcare leaders, how how do they learn more about Iris and kind of get in touch?
00:37:33 Andy Flanagan: Yeah. Iris telehealth comm. You can find me on X. You can find us everywhere but Irish telehealth. Come see us. And, uh, thanks to everybody out there who's listening for what you do to take care of patients. It's, uh. It's definitely. You need far more of us here doing it than we have today. So God bless all.
00:37:52 Megan Antonelli: Oh, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Andy. It's a pleasure. Thank you to our audience for listening. Uh, great conversation. Um, you know, around this, you know, sort of struggle to keep pace between behavioral health demand and access and kind of the technologies that support it. So exciting to hear and see, you know, what Iris is able to do and achieve over the next few months and few years. Um, and appreciate the work that you're doing there. Andy, thanks again. This is Megan Antonelli signing off from Digital Health Talks.
00:38:24 Outro: Thank you for joining us on Digital Health Talks, where we explore the intersection of healthcare and technology with leaders who are transforming patient care. This episode was brought to you by our valued program partners, Automation anywhere. Revolutionizing healthcare workflows through intelligent automation. Natera. Advancing contactless vital signs. Monitoring. Elite groups delivering strategic healthcare IT solutions. Sailpoint. Securing healthcare identity management and access governance. Your engagement helps drive the future of healthcare innovation. Subscribe to Digital Health Talks on your preferred podcast platform. Share these insights with your network and follow us on LinkedIn for exclusive content and updates. Ready to connect with healthcare technology leaders in person? Join us at the next Health Impact event. Visit Health Impact Artforum.com for dates and registration. Until next time, this is digital health talks where changemakers come together to fix healthcare.