Welcome back to our latest installment of the Behavioral Health Career Launchpad! This week we are bringing you a special interview with Dr. Clare Kennedy Purvis. Dr. Purvis is a psychologist by training and has since transitioned to the digital health world, holding leadership roles at Lantern, Headspace, and Mindcure. She is also an advisor and consultant to clients including Brightline, Flo, Limbix, Violet, Google, and Sanofi. Dr. Purvis founded WELL for Digital Health in 2017, which has grown to become a premier leadership community for women in digital health. WELL delivers a digital health “mini-MBA,” helping women showcase their expertise, grow their network, and accelerate their impact as leaders in digital health.

This week we sat down with Dr. Purvis to chat about how clinical leaders in the behavioral health field can navigate the transition to digital health. In this blog post, you will find advice around skills needed to transition to digital health, what roles to target, and so much more.

As a note, all answers below have been paraphrased for ease of reading.

Q: If I am a clinical leader brainstorming options for my next career move, why should I consider a role at a digital health company?

A: The top motivators that drive individuals into the digital behavioral health technology space are scale and impact. As an individual therapist, there is no doubt that you have impact, but that impact is often on a one to one basis. By transitioning to a behavioral health tech company, you have the opportunity to exponentially expand your impact to hundreds or thousands of individuals. If you’re feeling frustrated by the pace of clinical work, and you want to be part of the movement to scale access to behavioral health interventions, you may find that a career in tech is the right path for you. . 

Q: What are the key skills clinical leaders should develop to be successful in digital health roles? How can clinicians bridge the gaps between clinical expertise and technical knowledge?

A: Clinicians are trained to have an extremely strong skill set for thinking strategically. They have to quickly ingest information, come up with a diagnosis, and then deliver treatment to a particular patient. As I transitioned to a digital health role, the biggest skill I had to develop was building my business acumen. How do we provide value for our customers? What are the challenges in our business model? How does the business need to scale and grow? My biggest piece of advice is for clinical leaders to work on translating their existing  strategic skill set to commercial challenges facing your company. Additionally, as you transition, make sure to learn from commercial leaders in your organization. They can help you make sense of the business while you bring the clinical expertise to the table. 

Q: What resources or experiences helped you learn about the digital health technology industry? 

A: This is truly the bread and butter of what we focus on at WELL. We want to make sure that every individual transitioning into the digital health field knows how to showcase their skills and expertise in a way that a business audience can understand. We want to make sure that you know how to talk about the vision you have for clinical impact and how that matters to the business. In addition to networks and training programs like we offer at WELL, I highly recommend getting plugged into the general startup information ecosystem. Demystifying how venture backed startup businesses work will provide fantastic context on many companies in the space. Finding newsletters or other resources in any space you are interested in can go a long way. 

Q: When transitioning from a clinical role, what role do you typically see individuals land at a digital health company?

A: Typically, people do not land directly in business roles, but rather land in roles that more closely mirror the work they did previously. Clinical supervision, operations and research are common first steps into the industry. Increasingly, I see clinicians sitting in product facing roles. Clinical subject matter experts often start by consulting with product development teams, which at most organizations includes product management, design, and engineering. I often expect these roles to be translational in nature: for example, what does the product team need to understand about delivering cognitive behavioral therapy for this population to build an effective product?

Q: How important is networking when making the leap into digital health, and how did you build relationships in this space?

A: Oh, networking is incredibly important! The industry can be really mystifying from the outside. Talking to individuals working at companies in this space is incredibly helpful. I would recommend researching companies that draw your interest, and then reaching out to clinicians and researchers at that company for short discovery calls. Ask about what their role involves, what they like, what they don’t like, what has surprised them, etc. Their feedback will help you start to narrow in on the types of roles and companies that are likely to be a good fit for you. In my first startup role, I set up coffee chats with women psychologists working at similar companies, and as we introduced each other to more colleagues, our relationships and networks gradually grew. (In fact, those coffee chats were the very beginning of WELL!) I would also like to call out that venture backed startups are not the only type of companies doing great work in this space. Many big tech companies (e.g., Google), life sciences, and nonprofits are involved in digital health innovation, and are worth exploring, too.

Q: Is there anything else that you would like our readers to know?

A: Yes. What brings people into this industry is a really beautiful vision of what is possible for behavioral health innovation. Any startup that is gaining traction has an aspirational vision and mission which everyone involved feels inspired to be a part of; that’s what draws mission-driven clinicians to the industry in the first place. But it’s important to know that this is also a very challenging market. The road is not easy. Now, with funding getting harder to come by, more companies are feeling the pinch. For any behavioral health startup to realize its mission, it needs to build a sustainable business. That has proven more difficult than many of us realized. Every person entering this space needs a healthy dose of pragmatism and resilience.  For clinicians entering the industry, be ready  to roll up your sleeves and work side-by-side with individuals across the organization to build towards that inspiring vision for the future. Look for companies with a mission powerful enough to fuel you as you do the hard work of improving behavioral health.

We extend a massive thanks to Dr. Purvis for sitting down to chat with us to provide her invaluable insights. You can learn more about WELL here.