One UNC physician founded a new health initiative and app after seeing a need for increased mental health support in the medical field.

In wake of the pandemic, the Heroes Health Initiative app was launched in Chapel Hill and nationally on Tuesday. Dr. Samuel McLean is one of the physicians, researchers and COVID survivors behind the app’s development.

In the UNC School of Medicine, McLean is the Research Vice-Chair in the Department of Anesthesiology and an attending physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine.

Developed by the UNC Institute for Trauma Recovery with the help of Google Cloud, this app is called Heroes Health and is free for healthcare workers through the App Store or Google Play Store.

The goal of this app is to better support the mental health of frontline workers and first responders. To do this, McLean said the app pushes a five-minute survey, or mental health assessment, out to frontline workers every week.

A screenshot of the Heroes Health app assessment. (photo courtesy of UNC Health)

This survey then provides them with a brief assessment of their anxiety, depression symptoms, stress and sleep.

“It gives a very simple picture readout of what their symptoms are like and also lets them see trends over time with how they’re doing,” McLean said. “Very importantly it links them up via immediate links to resources.”

These resources might include immediate crisis support or other mental health resources to improve sleep and stress.

For organizations and medical facilities that partner with the initiative, McLean said the app allows for group-level, anonymous feedback from all hospital workers to leadership. This feedback allows leadership to know how nurses and general staff are faring as pandemic stressors continue to fluctuate.

“It’s really valuable to be able to keep tabs and to be able to provide institutional support to areas of the institution that need it,” McLean said.

As a practicing emergency physician and a COVID-19 unit worker, McLean understands firsthand the great challenges COVID workers face.

That’s why he contacted his colleagues at Google to help with the app development back in March when he was working on the COVID unit.

McLean said he saw the trauma that this virus could inflict on its patients but he didn’t fully understand until he and his family were infected.

“Until you experience it personally and see loved ones also struggle with it, it really is different than appreciating it conceptually,” McLean said. “Having that firsthand experience of finding it difficult to breathe is something that I certainly will never forget and redoubled my interest in providing something during this time.”

To learn more about the Heroes Health Initiative, click here.

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