MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

Telavita - Mental Health Programs Brazil

One-line solution summary:

Telavita provides preventative mental health programs to insurance providers and employers, improving emotional health and reducing costs

Pitch your solution.

The pandemic has intensified the mental health crisis in LatAm. The health sector in Brazil/LatAm is struggling with a lack of qualified professionals, vast distances, and long wait times. Widening inequality and cost inflation have resulted in unaffordable private care, clogging up the struggling public health system, and leading to the abuse of emergency care resources for trivial cases.

Telavita provides mental health programs for insurers and employers. Our programs are based on three pillars: 1) psychosocial education, to increase awareness and promote behavioral change, 2) population screening, to identify potential risks, and 3) telehealth consultations with our trained psychiatrists and psychologists, to treat and prevent emotional disorders.

Our value proposition for employers is a reduction of absenteeism and health insurance costs, with a simultaneous increase in employee satisfaction, productivity and retention. For insurers we increase efficiency, scalability and quality of care, while reducing follow-on costs, emergency care usage and hospitalization rates.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

The COVID pandemic has intensified the already prevailing and precarious mental health crisis in Latin America and across the world. Furthermore, the health sector in Brazil and Latin America is struggling with a number of structural issues: Due to a lack of qualified professionals and vast geographical distances, a large percentage of the population has no access to quality care, suffers from long wait times, or is required to travel great distances for access to care. Despite the greater number of health professionals in urban centers, factors like heavy traffic and ineffective clinic management systems result in a high number of no-shows and other procedural inefficiencies. Due to widening economic inequality and significant cost inflation over the last years private health care has become more and more unaffordable for the majority of the population, clogging up the already struggling public health system even more and resulting in abuse of emergency care resources for trivial use cases.

What is your solution?

Telavita manages mental health programs for health insurers and employers. Our programs are based on three pillars: 1) psychosocial education, to increase awareness and promote behavioral change, 2) population screening, to identify potential risks, and 3) telehealth consultations with our trained clinical staff of psychiatrists and psychologists, to treat and prevent emotional disorders.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Telavita is the only platform uniquely focused on the B2B market, providing services to health insurers and employers.

Our value proposition for employers is a reduction of absenteeism and health insurance costs, with a simultaneous increase employee satisfaction, productivity and retention. For health insurance providers we are able to increase efficiency, scalability and quality of online care, while reducing follow-on costs, emergency care usage and hospitalization rates.

Currently around 50 million Brazilians are insured by around 2.000 health insurance providers. For all of Latin America this number is estimated to be around 120 million.

By also providing services directly to employers, the number of potential users expands to around 90 million employees, employed by Brazil's more than 10 millions companies. Across Latin America the number of employees is estimated around 300 million.

Finally, Telavita is in early stage pilot projects with the Brazilian public sector, which attends around half of Brazil's population of 210 million citizens. The total number of citizens in Latin America is 650 million. Around 20% of the Latin American population is estimated to be currently suffering from mental disorders like depression or anxiety.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Combat loneliness, stress, depression, and other mental health impacts of disease outbreaks.

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.

As Telavita offers online emotional support to its clients, all of our services have helped our end users struggling with issues specifically related to COVID-19, like isolation, depression, anxiety and other mental disorders. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Telavita has helped tens of thousands of people in need, and our user base is growing 20-30% month-on-month. In addition, Telavita is offering online psychological support to front-line health professionals fighting COVID-19 (doctors, nurses, etc.) in partnership with NGO Horas da Vida and Boehringer Ingelheim, and is expanding its public healthcare sector activities in a new partnership with SPDM.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

São Paulo, State of São Paulo, Brazil

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several communities, which is poised for further growth.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

Telavita has managed to close contracts with some of Brazil's largest and most innovative companies, like Bradesco, Itaú, Care Plus, Omint, Optum, Fleury, Stone and Petrobras. Telavita's revenues and user numbers are growing 20-30% month-on-month, and our users are extremely satisfied with our services (NPS platform: 90%, NPS professionals: 98%). As Telavita strongly believes in providing value-based care, we are also tracking clinical outcomes of our patients, reporting significant improvements in self-reported mental health in more than 90% of all cases. Furthermore, we are meeting our clients' goals with regards to cost reductions, quality of care, employee satisfaction and return on investment with an average ROI of 3-4x (considering the reduction in absenteeism and increase in productivity).

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Andy Bookas

More About Your Solution

If your solution has a website or an app, provide the links here:

https://telavita.com.br

If you have additional video content that explains your solution, provide a YouTube or Vimeo link here:

Which of the following categories best describes your solution?

A new business model or process that relies on technology to be successful

What makes your solution innovative?

Telavita is the only provider in Brazil specialized in mental and emotional health for B2B clients, offering telemedicine and telepsychology services, allowing for deep systems integration with health care providers, focused on case resolution and value-based care, and is the only provider not operating as an open marketplace, and instead operating with our own dedicated (yet autonomous) clinical staff, which are carefully selected, trained in our proprietary methodology, and accompanied constantly by our clinical management team.

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

Behavioral Technology
Crowd Sourced Service / Social Networks
Software and Mobile Applications

Select the key characteristics of your target population.

Women & Girls
Pregnant Women
LGBTQ+
Elderly
Rural
Peri-Urban
Urban
Poor
Low-Income
Middle-Income
Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations
Persons with Disabilities

Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?

3. Good Health and Well-being

In which countries do you currently operate?

Brazil

In which countries will you be operating within the next year?

Argentina
Chile
Colombia
Mexico
Peru
Uruguay

How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?

Currently serving a population of 4 million
Planning to serve 10 million in one year
Planning to serve 100 million in five years

How are you measuring your progress toward your impact goals?

Population size:
Currently serving a population of 4 million
Planning to serve 10 million in one year
Planning to serve 100 million in five years

Impact:
Self-reported mental health: more than 90% of end users report a signficant improvement in mental health after using our services

About Your Team

Your Business Model & Partnerships

Partnership & Prize Funding Opportunities

Why are you applying to Solve?

Access to funding
Trusted support group
Network of impact-minded leaders
Mentorship, coaching, and strategic advice from experts

In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?

Human Capital (e.g. sourcing talent, board development, etc.)
Business model (e.g. product-market fit, strategy & development)
Financial (e.g. improving accounting practices, pitching to investors)
Legal or Regulatory Matters
Public Relations (e.g. branding/marketing strategy, social and global media)
Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)
Product / Service Distribution (e.g. expanding client base)
Technology (e.g. software or hardware, web development/design, data analysis, etc.)

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

No, I do not wish to be considered for this prize, even if the prize funder is specifically interested in my solution

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

No, I do not wish to be considered for this prize, even if the prize funder is specifically interested in my solution

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for the Innovation for Women Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

No, I do not wish to be considered for this prize, even if the prize funder is specifically interested in my solution

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The AI for Humanity Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

No, I do not wish to be considered for this prize, even if the prize funder is specifically interested in my solution

Do you qualify for and would you like to be considered for The Global Fund Prize? If you select Yes, explain how you are qualified for the prize in the additional question that appears.

No