Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Telehealth Startup Cerebral In Spotlight For Treating Minors
The Wall Street Journal: Cerebral Treated A 17-Year-Old Without His Parents’ Consent. They Found Out The Day He Died
Telehealth startup Cerebral had software that could verify customer IDs but didn’t use it to check birth dates and other details, a policy that resulted in some minors being treated without parental consent, according to former employees and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. An internal memo reviewed by the Journal described the software ID check as an impediment to customer retention when Cerebral was trying to quickly enroll tens of thousands of customers for mental-health treatment during the Covid-19 pandemic. The company used software to capture selfies of patients but relied on clinicians to verify details such as ages during 30-minute video chats. (Safdar, 9/29)
In other mental health care news —
AP: Oregon Hospitals Sue State Over Mental Health Care Treatment
Three of Oregon’s largest hospital systems are suing the state over its alleged lack of adequate mental health care, which they say has forced the hospital systems to house patients in need of mental health treatment for months. Providence Health & Services, Legacy Health and PeaceHealth say in the lawsuit the Oregon Health Authority has forced them to provide care they’re not equipped to give for patients who should be civilly committed to psychiatric institutions such as the Oregon State Hospital, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. (9/29)
Anchorage Daily News: Federal Inspectors Fault Assaults, Escapes, Improper Use Of Locked Seclusion At North Star Youth Psychiatric Hospital
Earlier this year, young patients at North Star Behavioral Health System — a locked, for-profit psychiatric hospital for children and teenagers in Anchorage — staged a small mutiny. (Theriault Boots, 9/28)
Stat: Virtual Drug Screen Finds Possible Antidepressants In LSD-Like Molecules
What’s a hallucinogen without the hallucinations? Perhaps a potent and fast-acting antidepressant, according to a new study based on virtual drug screening. (Keshavan, 9/28)
NBC News: Dogs Can Smell When We're Stressed Out, A New Study Shows
The researchers also collected before and after measurements of heart rate and blood pressure and responses to questionnaires that asked about the volunteers’ stress levels before and after the math task. The dogs' accuracy at detecting the stress samples — from 90 percent to 96.88 percent — was even better than the researchers anticipated. (Carroll, 9/28)
