Benefits plans with a wide range of mental-health supports are taking on new importance as employers look to attract and retain key talent in a tight labour market, said Julie Gaudry, head of group insurance at RBC Insurance Inc., during Benefits Canada’s 2021 Mental Health Summit. One third of Canadian businesses are currently grappling with […]
SAP Canada Inc. is accelerating the expansion of virtual wellness offerings through its benefits package amid the coronavirus pandemic. “The pandemic has essentially pressed fast-forward on a direction that the market was already going,” says Megan Smith, vice-president and head of human resources at the software company. “It forced the issue of remote work, causing employers […]
Purolator Inc. is adapting its benefits plan to proactively respond to employees’ mental-health needs amid the coronavirus pandemic. The company has expanded both the dollar value and scope of its mental-health benefits offering, including access to cognitive behavioural therapy and social workers, says Anna Manocchio, senior director of total rewards and human resources technology at […]
Dialogue Health Technologies Inc. is acquiring mental-health provider e-Hub Health, which provides internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy. e-Hub Health offers a range of programs to support mental-health concerns, including moodgym, which targets the reduction of depression and anxiety symptoms; e-couch, which includes targeted programs for depression, anxiety, bereavement, divorce and social anxiety; and mental-health guru, a module-based online […]
Canadians have weathered two waves of the coronavirus pandemic and are now working their way through the third. But what happens when the fourth wave — of psychological trauma, economic injury and burnout — arrives? One half of Canadians said they’d experienced worsening mental-health challenges during the pandemic, according to an April 2020 poll by […]
The same technology advancements that allowed for hyper-personalized service in sectors from banking to food delivery were already in the process of remaking health-care access and delivery. And then the coronavirus pandemic hit, quickly accelerating the acceptance of digital health care in Canada. Surveys have shown 60 per cent of health-care visits are now taking […]
Public companies that invest in their people have three times’ the return on their stock price of those that don’t, making a clear case for investing in plan members’ health needs and disability prevention strategies, said Tyler Amell, adjunct faculty at Pacific Coast University for Workplace Health Sciences, during Benefits Canada’s 2021 Chronic Disease at […]
Green Shield Holdings Inc. is acquiring Inkblot Technologies, a virtual mental-health platform that uses artificial intelligence-assisted technology, network effects and advanced analytics to match patients with counsellors. “Building on our previous . . . digital-health investments and partnerships, the acquisition of Inkblot fits with our strategic objective of increasing access for our clients to leading health services […]
Employees were increasingly using digital mental-health-care options for years, but the coronavirus pandemic shifted the trend into high gear. Since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic almost one year ago on March 11, 2020, providing some health-care virtually instead of in-person has become the norm. By the end of March 2020, […]
Internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy is reaching pockets of the population that had never previously accessed mental-health care and achieving clinical improvement for users, said Adam Kelly, chief commercial officer at MindBeacon Group, during Benefits Canada’s 2020 Mental Health Summit. iCBT, which is delivered asynchronously either through guided text conversations with a trained psychologist or social […]