Ohio 988, RecoveryRachel and Alaska’s IDD telehealth service meet people at different moments of need. We build each around the same goal: helping someone reach the right next level of support and stay connected along the way.
A person does not experience a crisis as a collection of programs.
They experience one need.
The system may divide that need among a provider directory, a virtual assistant, a 988 contact center, 911, mobile crisis, an emergency department, a specialized clinician and community-based follow-up. Each service has a legitimate role. The fragmentation appears when the person has to understand those roles, repeat the same story and rebuild the pathway at every boundary.
We design our platforms around the full journey—from first contact through the next appropriate level of support.
Our work in Ohio and Alaska touches several points along that continuum. RecoveryRachel helps Ohioans find mental-health and addiction services before or after a crisis. We are developing Ohio’s state-centralized 988 platform to coordinate crisis contacts, routing, warm transfers, mobile response and referrals across nineteen centers. Alaska’s IDD and ISW telehealth service offers 24/7 access to specialized support that can help people and caregivers during distress and connect with emergency resources when needed.
The programs are distinct. Their value increases when the next step is designed as carefully as the first.
The continuum begins before the crisis call
Many people begin by searching.
They may know that something is wrong but not know which type of provider to seek. A family member may be looking for treatment after a difficult week. A professional may be helping someone find a program that accepts their insurance. The need is real, but it is not necessarily an immediate crisis.
RecoveryRachel gives Ohioans a statewide front door to mental-health and addiction services. People can browse providers or talk and chat with a confidential virtual assistant that asks plain-language questions and helps narrow the options. The public can begin without creating an account.
This is upstream crisis-system work.
A trusted, usable path to routine care can help a person act before needs intensify. It can also support the period after an acute event, when follow-up often determines whether the person remains connected or returns to crisis.
RecoveryRachel guides people through service options while leaving diagnosis to clinicians, and directory listings cannot guarantee appointment availability. The service makes the system more navigable. When someone needs immediate help, the public experience directs them to call or text 988.
A continuum begins by knowing which pathway the person needs now.
988 is someone to contact—not the whole system
The national 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline created a simple number for people to call, text or chat. Its simplicity is powerful. The operating environment behind it is not simple.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s national guidance describes a coordinated behavioral-health crisis system through three essential elements: someone to contact, someone to respond and a safe place for help.
988 is the contact point. Depending on the person’s needs, the best outcome may be support and safety planning during the interaction, connection to a local provider, dispatch of a mobile crisis team, coordination with 911 or movement to a crisis stabilization or emergency setting.
For us, answering the contact is only the beginning. The specialist needs accurate information, usable resources and a reliable way to reach the next service. The receiving organization needs enough context to continue the response without making the person start over.
The call is successful when it creates the appropriate next step—even when that next step is continued support on the same line.
Statewide coordination must preserve local pathways
Ohio’s 988 network includes nineteen local contact centers. Each carries knowledge that a statewide system needs: regional coverage, Public Safety Answering Point relationships, mobile-team practices, provider resources and community context.
We are developing Ohio’s state-centralized platform to bring voice, text, chat, routing, warm transfers, referrals, documentation and analytics into a shared environment. Discovery with centers and crisis-system partners is shaping the platform.
The design supports the path that fits each interaction.
We are configuring smart routing around geography, capacity and established local relationships. We are building warm-transfer workflows to carry context when another center or service becomes involved, coordinated-dispatch capabilities to connect contact with response, and statewide dashboards that improve operational visibility while keeping judgment with frontline professionals.
Ohio’s platform is under active development. As we move through configuration, integration, testing and training, we are validating each workflow with the centers and partners who will use it. Once statewide operations begin, performance data will guide continued improvement.
The architectural principle is already clear: centralization should make local knowledge available across the network, not make local knowledge disappear.
Specialized support belongs between routine care and emergency response
Some people require expertise that a general crisis pathway may not have immediately available.
An individual with an intellectual or developmental disability may communicate pain or distress differently. A change in routine, sensory overload or loss of structure may contribute to escalating behavior. A caregiver may recognize the pattern but need help deciding what to do next.
Alaska’s IDD and ISW telehealth service makes licensed clinicians available 24/7/365 to eligible individuals at no cost to the participant. Services include crisis support, assessment and ongoing behavioral-health follow-up, with coordination involving hospitals and emergency services when required.
In early program use, we have seen eligible people return during gaps in routine, caregivers reach the service for practical support and participants use it repeatedly. We protect identities while learning from those experiences.
These experiences are helping Alaska and RingMD understand where specialized support adds value: keeping more options open during distress and helping people reach higher levels of care when needed. We will keep strengthening that role as the program generates more experience and data.
The continuum becomes more responsive when it can match expertise to the person rather than sending every need through the same door.
The warm handoff carries more than data
A cold referral gives the person a name and number.
A warm handoff helps establish the next connection.
The difference may involve introducing the person to the receiving party, sharing relevant context with proper authority, confirming that the destination is available or remaining engaged until responsibility has clearly transferred. In crisis care, these steps reduce the chance that the person is left between services.
We build technology around the people, responsibilities and agreements that make a handoff work.
Programs must agree on which information is necessary, what consent or legal authority permits its exchange, who owns the transition and what happens when the destination cannot accept the referral. The sending service should know whether the transfer succeeded. The receiving service should understand why the person has arrived.
In Ohio, we are designing warm transfer and coordinated dispatch as end-to-end workflows. We apply the same discipline to Alaska follow-up and RecoveryRachel navigation: when we present a next option, we also make the path to it clear and achievable.
Continuity is the product of an accountable transition.
Documentation should reduce repetition, not multiply it
Fragmented systems often make people repeat their history because each service begins a separate record.
Some repetition is clinically necessary. A receiving professional must make an independent assessment and verify critical facts. Unnecessary repetition, however, can be exhausting or retraumatizing, especially during crisis.
Better documentation can preserve context while respecting role boundaries and privacy.
Ohio’s developing 988 platform includes a consent-based smart-documentation capability. The system is designed to transcribe an interaction and organize it into a structured draft. The crisis specialist reviews and approves the record before it becomes final.
The specialist’s review keeps clinical meaning and accountability with the trained professional while automation reduces the clerical burden around documentation.
Across the continuum, we design records to be useful and appropriately limited: enough accurate information to support safety, handoff, reporting and follow-up; no more personal data than the purpose requires; and clear accountability for what becomes part of the official record.
Data Should Strengthen the Pathway
A coordinated system needs shared visibility.
State leaders need to understand demand, staffing pressure, regional variation, transfer patterns and resource gaps. Contact centers need a view of their own operations. Providers need accurate directory information. Program teams need to know whether people are returning, reaching follow-up and encountering barriers.
Each program can collect the specific information it needs while protecting the person behind the data.
RecoveryRachel is designed so the public can search without creating an account, while providers use authenticated tools to maintain listings. Ohio’s 988 environment requires stronger interaction-level controls because the work involves crisis contacts and operational coordination. Alaska’s reporting must help the State understand access and engagement while protecting people in a comparatively small disability community from re-identification.
The continuum therefore needs differentiated data practices. Public navigation, crisis operations and specialized clinical support do not require identical information.
Good analytics answer a defined system question. Where are transfers failing? Which resource categories are difficult to find? When does demand exceed capacity? Are eligible users able to reach the service through the devices and connections available to them?
We use data to improve the pathway while respecting the person.
Each Program Strengthens a Different Part of the Continuum
Digital health makes existing clinical capacity easier to reach and coordinate, while public agencies and provider networks remain responsible for local services, transportation and appointment access.
988 anchors immediate crisis contact; RecoveryRachel opens a path to routine providers; Alaska’s telehealth program adds specialized support for eligible people with IDD; and Ohio’s statewide platform is designed to make handoffs across organizations more coordinated.
Each program fills a different gap, and the connections among them are what make the broader system stronger.
They help people enter the available system, recognize when another level of care is needed, preserve context, reveal capacity gaps and support follow-up after the acute moment.
When friction emerges, we help program teams see it, assign ownership and reduce it over time.
RingMD connects the pathway
RecoveryRachel, Ohio 988 and Alaska IDD telehealth are separate programs for separate public missions. Our role differs in each.
For RecoveryRachel, we built the portal, provider-data workflows and governed voice-and-text navigation. In Ohio 988, we are developing the statewide crisis-operations platform and integrations. In Alaska, we provide the telehealth environment and service orchestration that make specialized clinicians reachable around the clock.
As our Chief Operating Officer, Varun Arora leads across these state initiatives. He works directly with agency leaders and frontline stakeholders, translates their objectives into delivery priorities and keeps our platform, program and operations teams aligned around the public mission.
Across all three programs, we bring technology, operations and human handoffs together at critical moments.
That connective approach matters because people do not enter the system in one predictable sequence. Whether someone begins with provider search, crisis contact or specialized telehealth, we design the pathway to recognize the need and support the next appropriate movement.
The encounter matters. The handoff matters more than most systems admit. Follow-up determines whether the connection lasts.
We build crisis-care technology so people can move from navigation to immediate support, from contact to response and from stabilization back to ongoing care—without being asked to carry the system across its own gaps.