Dr. Jonathan King, Founder & Chief Growth Officer, Lysn
Clinicians all over the world have long realized the significance and fragility of mental health. However, the onset of Covid-19 has brought mental and behavioural health into greater focus. With the global health crisis leading to millions of deaths, economic strife and unprecedented curbs on social interaction, more and more people are struggling with mental illness than ever before to the point that strategic action is clearly needed. Even prior to the pandemic, one in five adults in the US experienced mental health challenges at any given time. But despite the increasing prevalence of mental illness, mental healthcare systems are typically deficient or non‐existent all over the world. Dedicated to bridging this gap, an influential business leader who’s making a stride in the mental healthcare space with his unique perspective and innovative solutions is Dr. Jonathan King, the Founder and Chief Growth Officer of Lysn.
Since childhood, Dr. Jonathan had always dreamed of making a difference. Whether it was his grade 4 science project focused on finding the cure for ebola or his goal at the age of 11 to discover something that would help the world and be featured in Time Magazine, that entrepreneurial spark was there within him from a young age. Working diligently got him into medical school in Australia and the same work ethic helped him to pursue surgery after graduation. While he loved surgery, he was always intrigued by how things could be done differently or innovated in medicine, from changing care models to using data and evidence-based research, to influencing treatment and clinical decision making. This further led him to focus on addressing the challenges in the mental healthcare continuum that seemed fractured and inconsistent for patients.
The Incredible Journey of Lysn
In 2016, when Dr. Jonathan was working as a doctor in Far North Queensland, he observed the lack of mental health services in regional/rural Australia and felt the need to do something about it. Thus, he officially launched Lysn, a digital mental health company in Nov 2017 with a handful of clinicians to help people find their best-fit professional psychologist whilst being able to access online tools to improve their mental health. Today, it has grown to over 625 psychologists nationally and expanded into dieticians and other allied health services that complement mental health treatment programs. Equipped with world-class wellbeing technology, now, it is able to serve the mental health needs of all Australians by improving access to quality services and in some cases improving the typical wait times in some areas, or providing a service that really wasn’t available.
“Coming from a surgical background, entering the digital mental health sector wasn’t easy. However, I do still think that my background gave me an advantage. This is because I already understood the nuances of healthcare and had a great knowledge of the structures of improving patient care. I have always believed if we could transplant some of the structured surgical style treatment frameworks like how we treat cancer patients, mental health sufferers would be more holistically treated and supported,” asserts Dr. Jonathan.
While Lysn is mainly seen as a service provider for mental health services, it set itself apart as an “outcome-driven” health company focused on improving outcomes. It not only uses data analysis to improve treatment protocols, but also uses ML/AL to improve client/clinician matching, and risk screening, to access specialised risk to help clinicians improve care throughout their treatment cycle.
Overcoming Challenges along the Way
When asked about the key challenges he had to face during his entrepreneurial journey, Dr. Jonathan affirms, “Starting a startup, especially a health tech startup is challenging enough. It requires you to be a jack of all trades, managing everything from business development, finances, to marketing and implementation. These are compounded by the nature of the healthcare industry, as until recent years, it moved relatively slowly in comparison to other industries being disrupted by start-ups.”
According to the avid entrepreneur, one of the major challenges in scaling a business is the understanding that as the founder, you can’t do it all, and it takes a village to build a successful business. Thus, he advises focusing on teamwork and collaboration as it’s commonly said “teamwork makes the dreamwork. Dr. Jonathan believes that a startup team is vital in making or breaking a business. Hence, it is better to focus on leading the company in the right direction and employing people who are experts in their own area. “I have so much respect for my colleagues and the team I have built at Lysn, as we work together to solve one of the greatest challenges of the society at the moment, mental health. This is amplified with great team culture, which I can truly say, no matter what healthcare issue we face in the future, I am sure we will be able to tackle it together,” opines Dr. Jonathan.
Committed To Make a Positive Social Change
Lysn’s mission is to solve the growing problem of mental health in the community and the world. Adhering to this organizational goal, Dr. Jonathan aspires to make a positive social change with the principle of accessibility, affordability, and being supportive. The ardent leader believes that healthcare should be accessible and affordable and the wealth of treatment streams allows Lysn to provide care to nearly anyone, making it accessible and affordable. Lysn covers free government-paid services, all the way up to private insurance and corporate care. Its patient experience managers go above and beyond checking on patients’ between therapy sessions and ensuring their treatment journeys don’t need adjustment.
Continues Making an Impact in Mental Healthcare Sector
Dr. Jonathan’s biggest piece of advice for any entrepreneur, from a solo founder to a CEO of a scaleup and beyond is to take care of themselves, physically and mentally. “From the outside, entrepreneurs often look like they have it all – wealth, brains, and successful thriving businesses. However, the unfortunate truth behind that facade is that many entrepreneurs are susceptible to, or suffering already from mental health issues. It seems like a pretty obvious one, however, entrepreneurs often act as company CEO, PA, Accountant, Admin Assistant, Marketing Exec, and Public Relations all in one, so it’s easy to see how the workload can put immense pressure on a person,” he elucidates. According to the business leader, success should be measured by our health, happiness, and ability to learn and grow.
Under the indomitable leadership of Dr. Jonathan, Lysn is poised to become a digital mental health therapeutics company, tackling the mental health end to end, from access and service delivery to personalised treatment frameworks that help patients, hospitals and insurers improve the care continuum for the patient and their family no matter what mental illness they suffer from. Dr. Jonathan believes that the use of digital platforms and data-driven research models with collaboration and partnership around the sector will drive improved care that can be co-designed and implemented into the community and hospital settings with real-world outcomes. “This is the Lysn future that we are passionate about and we hope it will impact many more lives, now and in the future, concludes Dr. Jonathan.