Kaiser Permanente has expanded its portfolio of online mental health options with the addition of Headspace Health’s Ginger app emotional support training.
All eligible adult Kaiser Permanente members can now use their smartphone to connect with Ginger’s emotional support coaches 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at no cost and without the need for referrals or appointments. Confidential one-on-one texting sessions provide support for common challenges like managing stress or sleeping better. However, the health system emphasizes that digital self-help tools are not a substitute for treatment services provided by Kaiser Permanente mental health physicians.
“Kaiser Permanente selected Ginger to help provide non-clinical emotional support counseling and expand the continuum of digital mental health tools we make available at no cost to all eligible adult members,” said Don Mordecai, MD, psychiatrist and national leader for mental health and wellness at Kaiser Permanente, in a statement. “The Ginger offering sits between our self-care offerings and our clinical care, providing personalized, text-based support from trained Ginger coaches to our members when they need it most, any time of the day or night” .
In early 2022, a survey conducted on behalf of the American Psychological Association found that a large percentage of Americans reported high levels of stress due to the financial impacts of inflation, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and global uncertainty. Kaiser said that mental health resources like the Ginger app, used in a self-guided way or as adjuncts to clinical support, can help people build resilience, set goals and take meaningful action to improve mental health and well-being. Members can use the Ginger app to:
- Discuss goals, share challenges and create an action plan with your coach
- Get personalized, interactive skill-building tools from a library of over 200 clinically validated activities and resources
- View summaries of each texting session, track your progress, and work with your coach to adjust action plans as needed.
In 2020, Kaiser Permanente added the first two apps to its digital self-care portfolio: Calm, a tool for mindful meditation, and myStrength, designed to help people improve wellness and improve sleep or mood. Kaiser Permanente physicians and therapists also have the ability to refer their patients to these and other evidence-based mental health and wellness applications through the organization’s electronic medical record system.
Kaiser Permanente members can text a counselor using the Ginger app 90 days a year. After 90 days, members can continue to access the other services available in the Ginger app for the rest of the year at no cost.
Kaiser Permanente has been dealing with a strike by its Northern California mental health workforce due to grueling working conditions and long patient waits, and it’s not alone in facing labor shortages. Mark Ghaly, MD, MPH, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, recently told CalMatters that the number of licensed behavioral health providers in the state increased by 20 percent between 2016 and 2020. But that was offset by a surge in demand that he calls “really unprecedented.”
