Integrative Touch’s Telehealth Programs: Combating Illness

In the United States, we are spending 18.3% of our GDP on healthcare (More than a 150% increase from 1970), but providers are more stressed than ever before. U.S. suicide rates among physicians are double that of the general population, and nurses exhibit burnout rates as high as 35%. These highly taxed individuals are caring for the most vulnerable among us, and yet often lack access to resources that provide them with care. Alarmingly, 1 in 5 children has some type of special health or medical need, and moms of children with autism show chronic levels of stress hormones, comparable to soldiers in combat. Unfortunately, families in underserved and marginalized communities face even higher barriers to accessing proper care and wellness.

Through Integrative Touch's Telehealth programs, TeleFriend & Telewellness, we are tackling these challenges. These innovative programs provide connection, wellness, and healing opportunities that change the lives of anyone touched by pain, suffering, or medical challenges. 

Our TeleFriend program reaches children who are isolated at home or in the hospital due to their medical conditions and compromised immune systems. We are available to all children across the country due to the flexibility of the services being provided remotely. These are remote series that run weekly for 8 weeks, and children can participate in several series. The Buddy Team talks, plays games, read stories, and spends time with kids in need. Often, these teams will create long-lasting relationships with the child and family they are paired with. This positive social support and connection is integral to wellness, healing, and creating resilience. TeleFriend participants experience a 41% decrease in anxiety and a 21% decrease in pain. 

Our TeleWellness Program provides care for caregivers and other adults who have been touched by trauma or illness. The program pairs a team of professional healers with hospitalized patients, healthcare workers, caregivers, and families with kids with complex medical needs at home or in the hospital. TeleWellness is designed to reduce stress & anxiety, create sustainability within healing, and promote healthy coping strategies. This program's goal is to provide interactive, experience-based wellness education and integrative therapies across the nation to everyone suffering from pain, trauma, and illness; both directly and indirectly. TeleWellness participants report an 87% decrease in anxiety, a 73% decrease in pain, and a 94% increase in well-being from weeks 1-10 of the series. With our Telehealth programs, we focus on providing assistance that produces long-term results and improves the quality of life for our participants.

Our Telehealth programs are the perfect match for the Health in Fragile Contexts Challenge because they: 

1. Increase local capacity & resilience in health systems, including the health workforce. 

2. Improve accessibility and quality of health services for underserved groups in fragile contexts. (such as refugees, women & children, older adults, and LGBTQ+ Individuals). 

3. Enable community of care, particularly around complex & chronic diseases, and health and well-being.

These community-driven programs are crucial for ensuring all people (including less visible groups) have access to the care they need and deserve. One participant who experienced the depth of our care said “Thank you InTouch for this grand opportunity. Our family has never felt love like this. We have been forever transformed and awakened.”

Integrative Touch (InTouch) programs serve all age groups, with percentage breakdowns of our participants including 20% infants, 25% children, 20% young adults, 20% adults, and 15% seniors. More than 70% of the families we serve are from low-income or underserved populations. Integrative Touch’s programs serve families from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. 45% Latino/Hispanic, 10% (Asian, American Indian, Black, Caucasian, Not specific- each), and 5%- Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. The families we serve identify as 45% Latinx, 17% Caucasian, 15% Asian, 10% Black or African American, 3% Native American, and 10% did not specify a race or ethnicity. Additionally, in our Telehealth programs, 85% of those we serve report having a disability. As an organization, 50% of our patients have a disability.

Our Telehealth services, which feature TeleFriend & TeleWellness, are accessible nationwide to anyone who has access to the internet. This allows us to address disparities in access to behavioral healthcare that is holistic and comprehensive. One TeleWellness Participant told us "After my session, I feel ready for the world. I feel empowered. I feel open to grow and hear, like I have a greater sense of listening now. In the meditation we did, we went into a very dark cave but I never felt apprehensive. I never pulled back. That's new to me. The words the team used just fit. All of it, the whole experience, I felt connected to the team. The first tool the team taught me was the exact one my son used in OT today. I really work to be in my special needs kids’ world to help understand where they are and be in their experience with them. The tools the team taught me will help me offer my kids new resources. Now they'll have more options to deal with their emotions. I'm going to be using everything I learned and I know it's gonna work for my kids and for me.”

Each session is cultivated and flexible, ensuring each participant receives quality and holistic care that is just as unique as their circumstances. In 2022, we served over 200 individuals, resulting in over 4,500 hours of Telehealth services provided. The goal of these sessions is to provide data-driven wellness education and interactive, experience-based wellness education that results in improvements in pain & anxiety, increases overall well-being, and creates resilience.

Integrative Touch has been a leader in integrative medicine for over 18 years. InTouch’s founder, Shay Beider, pioneered a new proprietary healing therapy called Integrative Touch™ Therapy, a technique that guides our programming and practice. We strive to provide access to these services that may not otherwise be attainable by providing approximately $100,000 in scholarships to frontline healthcare providers so they can develop skills to better manage stress and prevent burnout.

We measure the outcomes and success of our programs through program studies and family feedback surveys. Methods of data collection include Wong-Baker FACES © Pain Rating Scale (ages 3 and older), Anxiety and Distress Scale (ages 5 and older), Global Well-Being Status (ages 18 and older), as well as demographic information (gender, ethnicity, race). Our Research and Evaluation Committee reviews data collected from each and every program series. That data is analyzed to better understand how effective our programs are and why. We also use this information to make continuous improvements to our processes and programs to better serve the community.

We currently have eight full-time staff members. We also have over 450 dedicated volunteers-including physicians, nurses, integrative therapists, youth, & adults who make our programs possible. We have also recruited our first AmeriCorps VISTA who will be serving with our organization until the end of August 2023. By the end of her service, she will have provided over 2,000 hours of service to our organization. 

At InTouch, we recruit interns interested in gaining professional and compassion experience. We also have 11 highly qualified board members who offer their expertise on one of our various committees. This framework allows InTouch to access a wide array of skills and expertise while remaining agile enough to focus on programs, program improvement, and organizational sustainability.

Furthermore, InTouch has systems in place to ensure good governance, stable leadership, & organizational sustainability. We have both a Board of Directors, an Advisory Council, and a Governance Committee that lead the organization and offer visionary insight. Our Board of Directors and Advisory Council members are extremely engaged with the organization and serve on several of our committees. We currently have 10 committees that plan and support our organization in a variety of ways.

InTouch is successful because every employee has a voice in the work they do. Equal collaboration between our staff has yielded a host of new & great ideas as well as a higher quality of work & programs. InTouch holds monthly lunches for staff & bi-annual retreats. The organization conducts quarterly performance evaluations and offers a number of professional development activities. All of these things, & more, have created a culture of caring, & support at InTouch. We are a people-first organization, which applies to our staff in addition to those we serve. This leads to great employee morale, & therefore strengthens our sustainability while lowering our turnover.

It is through expert governance, experience, dedication and compassion that we are the right people to deliver this solution.

In 2022, we served 200 individuals. This resulted in over 4,500 hours of Telehealth services provided across the country. We focus on the depth of care that we deliver, and on providing truly transformative services as opposed to reaching as many people as possible in a less meaningful way.

Through harnessing compassionate Telehealth practices that are innovative, therapeutic, unique to each individual, and backed by cutting-edge science, we help and heal those suffering from pain, trauma, anxiety, and illness. Accessible to all in need, InTouch supports transformative healing through both of our Telehealth programs. By utilizing innovative wellness programs to help the body, mind, heart, and spirit, we transform trauma and illness for anyone suffering, no matter their background or financial circumstances.

In 2023 our Telehealth programming budget increased by 49%; from $172,000 to $257,000. This budget increase represents the larger impact InTouch was able to accomplish, and we hope to expand our reach even further. However, this is a drastic, but necessary, increase in the budget. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on grantors, and our donors to sustain our programs.  Additionally, while our Telehealth programs are available nationwide, we would like to continue to expand our outreach to impact more communities across the country. 

We hope that Solve can assist us through funding, and through the ability to have more visibility across the country so more are aware of these transformational services.

We provide a data-driven solution to the barriers that caregivers and children with medical challenges face in accessing wellness, care, and healing. By using technology to serve a diverse community, Integrative Touch is able to provide personalized care to individuals in need. By focusing our programs on low-income communities and following a scholarship model to minimize participant fees, we ensure that our Telehealth solutions are accessible to all who need them. We recognize that by partnering with healthcare organizations who can underwrite program costs to achieve these outstanding results for their employees, patients and families, we can greatly increase the numbers served.  

Next year we want to serve 3000 people through the Healing Center and all the programs it will house, including our Telehealth programs. In 5 years, we want to be serving 8-10k people annually through the unique mix of programs and services we offer. 

We plan to achieve this through continual improvement of our programs and their design while expanding our client base through targeted marketing.

We measure Telehealth outcomes through program studies and family feedback surveys. Methods of data collection include Wong-Baker FACES © Pain Rating Scale (ages 3 and older), Anxiety and Distress Scale (ages 5 and older), Global Well-Being Status (ages 18 and older), as well as demographic information (gender, ethnicity, race). Our Research and Evaluation Committee reviews data collected from each and every program series. That data is analyzed to better understand how effective our programs are and why. We also use this information to make continuous improvements to our processes and programs to better serve the community. 

Although our Telehealth program was launched only 3 years ago, we have seen tremendous growth and improvement in participant health outcomes. TeleFriend participants experience a 41% decrease in anxiety and a 21% decrease in pain. Recipients of our 10 week TeleWellness program report 87% decrease in anxiety, a 73% decrease in pain, and a 94% increase in well-being from week 1 to 10. Demand for our Telehealth programs are higher than ever, and we hope to provide more sessions and continue to serve those across the world who need us most. Our solution has an impact on the problem at hand due to its accessibility, affordability, adaptability, and stong outcomes.

Our Telehealth programs are provided exclusively online to reach the largest number of participants in need, no matter where they live. We hold all TeleFriend and TeleWellness sessions over Zoom, which offers participants, volunteers, and therapists the ability to collaborate, communicate, and speak freely in a private online space. We utilize Program Evaluators to conduct pre and post surveys with program participants during every Telehealth session to ensure that our programs are driven by data and feedback. Using the data from these surveys, Integrative Touch analyzes the effectiveness of our programs and works to improve our system of providing accessible care and resources to our communities.

InTouch is committed to diversity and strives to make our organization reflect those we serve. We serve people from all backgrounds and work with people from all backgrounds, including Staff, Board Members, Volunteers, Interns, & more. Our onboarding process is designed to be inclusive & welcoming. We also hold four DEIA training with all staff and Board Members each year. Furthermore, we actively seek new Board members, staff persons, and volunteers that reflect the communities we serve & have more diversity.

Integrative Touch’s business model is based in delivering a high quality of care through Integrative Therapies. We do that through our unique and holistic wellness model. This means that not only do we serve children with severe medical conditions, but we also treat their parents, siblings, doctors and nurses, frontline hospital workers as well, and anyone who is suffering from pain, trauma, and illness. When you reduce the pain and anxiety of everyone around the child at the center of a medical trauma, that child will have better outcomes in addition to everyone else. 

Integrative Touch has been testing, improving and expanding our Telehealth programs since their creation in 2020, serving more people each year. Our chief priority in our programs is to deliver an extremely high level of care. We achieve this by collecting data and feedback on all program participants pre and post program. We intake those items and determine how best we can utilize it to make continuous improvements to our programs and processes to deliver an ever increasingly customized and robust TeleHealth program.

Serving the community in the way we do, means meeting people where they are to provide services, which we do through our various programs. We serve kids facing severe medical conditions and the isolation that too often accompanies it, through our TeleFriend program. We also reach parents and care-givers through our Telehealth program, giving them tools to thrive in the long term.

We partner with local organizations who can refer patients to us that need our services the most. We also find financial supporters in Foundations and Organizations that value the incredible depth and efficacy of our programs, through these efforts, Integrative Touch has been able to grow to serve more people each year. Our core business is extremely stable and has been operating for 18 years, our new Telehealth programs were founded in 2020 and have been an area of pronounced and prolonged growth. We are currently documenting and reviewing all business and service processes to optimize the scalability of our programs. We’ve also added two new full time positions within the past year to focus on capitalizing on the period of growth we’re in, without compromising the quality of our programs for the sack of growth.

InTouch is currently engaged in a campaign to ensure financial stability and sustainability as it grows this Healing Center and its online programming. While fundraising and long-term community partnerships are part of our model, we have also created a “Heal it Forward” model of care. This means that people who receive our services pay based on a sliding scale. Affluent people who come to receive our transformative services will pay full price, thus subsidizing those who receive our services for free or for a nominal cost. We project that The Integrative Touch Healing Center will become fully self-sustainable in 2024. Future fundraising will be used to expand our service offerings and to reach more people who would otherwise go without our life-changing services.

InTouch’s plan to achieve financial sustainability has been successful through receiving various avenues of funding sources. We receive 20% of our funding from Corporations, 20% from Foundations, and 60% from Others which includes in-kind services and our annual Butterfly Gala. The Butterfly Gala is our largest fundraising event of the year, and our 15th annual Gala occurred on April 29, 2023. We continuously welcome over 400 attendees at this event and raise over $200,000. With the help of our committed donors, we have continued to grow our organization and outreach annually. But most importantly, we’ve been successful with our “Heal it Forward” in the past through our Telehealth programming. By showing the value of our programs and commitment to providing our high-quality care, people are inspired to pay what they can, which creates a community of people that are invested in the InTouch mission. We consistently grow our In-Kind donations each year for the same reason… People want to support the depth of care that we deliver. Our programs and its participants are tangible evidence of a community that receives the support needed to thrive when people invest in it.