We are excited to share that Avi Flombaum has joined the Journey Clinical team as Head of Product. From founding and scaling multiple companies including the Flatiron School to serving Chief Product Officer at Revature, Avi carries a reputation for stellar leadership and innovation. We are extremely proud to be joined by such a seasoned product leader to help us fortify our collaborative care experience for our patients and therapists.
Avi wrote a piece on his Medium blog about why he decided to join Journey Clinical. You can read his full piece below:
“I’m thrilled to share that I’ve joined Journey Clinical as the Head of Product. Journey Clinical is on a mission to improve mental health outcomes by expanding access to evidence-based psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy safely and effectively.
Throughout my life I’ve suffered from major depressive episodes and PSTD from a traumatic brain injury that resulted in having brain surgery for an epidural hematoma when I was fourteen. The standard treatment of SSRIs have for the most part been ineffective for me and staying on those medications with their side-effects has been challenging and I stop taking them.
I’m not alone here as the epidemic of depression in the country is well-documented. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, the prevalence of adults in the U.S. with a major depressive episode increased from 6.7% in 2005 to 7.1% in 2017. More recent data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey suggests a further increase.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this trend, with reports from the CDC indicating that the percentage of adults with recent symptoms of an anxiety or a depressive disorder increased from 36.4% to 41.5% from August 2020 to February 2021.
A study from the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that from 1999 to 2014, the percentage of Americans using antidepressants nearly doubled from 6.8% to 13%. More recent statistics suggest that this trend has continued, with over 13% of Americans 12 years of age and older reporting antidepressant use in the past month, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (2015–2018 data).
A comprehensive study published in “Psychiatric Services” noted that even as more people receive treatment for depression, the overall burden of the disorder, as measured by disability and societal costs, has not proportionally decreased.
Despite the increased use of SSRIs and other antidepressants, the prevalence of depression has not decreased significantly. Researchers argue that this indicates a need for more effective treatment strategies.
It is an exciting opportunity to help a connect therapists, prescribers, and patients in a collaborative care model powered by the Journey Clinical platform. I believe that platform can meaningfully improve patient outcomes and empower therapists to build and grow their practice with education and training.
The company has been growing fast and I’m thrilled to be part of the team. I find my strength in product and engineering leadership to be perfect for the stage of the company and it’s certainly the phase of startups that I enjoy most. It helps that the platform is built in Ruby on Rails, my favorite engineering stack.
And it has been so much fun and challenging getting out of my comfort zone of EdTech that I was in for thirteen years and learn about the world of HealthTech. I’m looking forward to sharing more about the company and platform in the future.”