As the founder of Mhaite and a psychiatrist with more than 16 years of experience leading Mental Health projects from Grupo Cetep, a company of which I am CEO; I have always had the dream of bringing Mental Health closer to people.
In Chile and in the world, access to Mental Health has unfortunately always been difficult and expensive for a large part of the population. Due to the pandemic, this reality was exacerbated, so we decided to accelerate our project, understanding that it was an urgent issue.
All countries have witnessed that after the Covid health crisis, the other pandemic has been marked by Mental Health, and that is where MHAITE was born as a virtual guide that aims to be a real solution for the needs of Mental Health of the Spanish-speaking population, both at the level of prevention and in low, medium and high complexity treatment.
Through MHAITE, we seek to democratize access to Mental Health and provide it at a low cost, when the person needs it and from the place they require it. That is our goal and for that we work together with a multidisciplinary team committed to this cause.
When we started this beautiful project, in March 2020, I was accompanied by Rodrigo Troncoso, a Civil Industrial and Computer Engineer, passionate about digital transformation and its impact on people; Together with him we are the founders of MHAITE. Then different professionals wanted to join this dream and helped us shape this initiative with their expertise. Today we have experts in artificial intelligence, data analysis, neuropsychology, psychiatry and engineering in different areas.
During the first year of this project, we have invested around $86,000 USD. We started with private funds, and along the way, we have managed to obtain funds from the Chilean State for the development of our venture.
After about 7 months of hard work, we managed to launch MHAITE in November 2020, offering guidance regarding the type of mental health care that people require, depending on the situation they face. To do this, people can chat for free with our chatbot with artificial intelligence, and then they are offered access to a session with a coach trained to provide support and psychological first aid aimed at reestablishing emotional balance.
One of the great barriers that as a company in the health area we want to break down, and on which we constantly work, is the great stigma that still exists regarding Mental Health. That is why our platform also offers a lot of information in a dynamic and entertaining way about emotional literacy and Mental Health care and prevention tips.
Likewise, even living in such a globalized world and with technology present in all spheres of life, we have perceived that there continues to be mistrust in the use of this type of tools in the field of health. Barrier that we have been breaking down through clinical trials and making visible the results obtained, in addition to the testimonies of other users who are already part of the Mhaite community.
Inspired by the impact that Mhaite has had on people’s lives, we have not wanted to stop dreaming and commit to offering support through innovation in more areas of health. For this reason, MHAITE is part of a larger project: H-Epic Force, in which we work to reach more people, covering topics such as general health, nutrition, sleep, sexuality, among others.
Today, more than 1 year after the beginning of this dream, we can say that we are happy. We have managed to bring Mental Health closer to more than 16 thousand people in Chile, and we work with the same motivation to bring this solution to the world.
There is no health without Mental Health, and we know that MHAITE can help everyone access it.
