BooknHeal.com is an online portal for mental health, connecting patients with psychotherapists.
BooknHeal makes it faster and easier to get help for mental health issues.
Our goal is to create a comprehensive online platform for mental health, additionally providing video therapy and other online tools for both the patients and the therapists. We are currently developing a client-therapist matching algorithm so that the patient can find the RIGHT psychotherapist and not just A therapist.
The Beta version was launched in Finland 2014 under the name Vapaat Ajat (= available appointments) and is being used by more than 120 psychotherapists.
In fall 2009, the founder of BooknHeal and @Care, Henri Valvanne, became seriously ill and was hospitalized. He was stuck in his hospital bed unable to move, speak or see. The only thing that was working was his mind. The doctors didn’t understand what was happening to him. He came close to death.
But he was lucky. He survived.
He spent five weeks in the hospital and after a long healing process he recovered in full. After this experience he decided that he would find a way to help people. This became his mission.
Henri had his own experiences on trying to get help for mental health issues. He had suffered from social phobia and had tried to find a psychotherapist. But he kept running into these horrible lists of therapists that offered only contact details and nothing more. It was impossible to choose a therapist, let alone find one that was available. Scheduling the first appointment was frustrating and hard.
By digging in deeper he realized that there were serious lacks in the system. He saw that the access to mental health care was not made easy and decided to do something about it. During his master’s studies in Sweden in 2012 he entered a startup competition with an idea on helping people receive mental health care through an online platform. The solution received the 1st Prize at the competition. This was the final push for Henri to launch the business.
Around the same time he contacted psychologist and psychotherapist Teemu Ollikainen who saw potential in the idea. Teemu had seen firsthand how hard it can be to find an available and suitable psychotherapist. He was constantly contacted by people looking for help and he could only direct them to different listings of psychotherapists. The two of them decided to start working together to make it easier for people to get help.
In spring 2015 the team was joined by Anna-Maija Sulonen (Ansku), an MD and a researcher. Ansku had participated in a Startup Weekend event in Vantaa and had pitched inthe competition with her idea of using a matching algorithm to connect patients with the right psychotherapists. She won the competition and the news spread to Henri. It didn’t take long for them to decide to join forces.
By contributing to the campaign you will help in making it easier for people to get help for their mental health problems. You are investing in a social enterprise. We use the money to make the world a better place while still aiming to return the money to you with a reasonable profit.
It’s easy to join the campaign, even if you hadn’t done any crowdfunding investments before.
We are happy to answer your questions – you can ask us on this web page, or by contacting us directly at info(at)booknheal.com
Currently your only choice to find a psychotherapist is by browsing through numerous listings of therapists provided by different mental health associations.
These listings offer only basic details and you have to call or e-mail a number of therapists in order to find an available time.
It is time consuming, frustrating, and simply hard to find a psychotherapist that is available and fits your specific needs.
BooknHeal is not just a solution to find a psychotherapist, but a complete client management and marketing service for the psychotherapists. BooknHeal gives more time to focus on taking care of the patient.
Some of the new features under development include:
The beta version called Vapaat Ajat (=available appointments) was launched in 2014 in Finland. The solution connects patients with psychotherapists and offers an easy way to schedule an appointment online. Currently we have over 120 psychotherapists and several mental health care companies using the service.
The Finnish version, Vapaatajat.fi, received an award in the Mikkeli Smart City open competition for solutions facilitating everyday life. In addition, founders of the company received awards in business and pitching competitions.
The service is always free for patients. Our revenues come from the mental health practitioners and companies. Currently we charge a commission from bookings and contact requests done through the site. Our plan is to introduce a monthly subscription alternative by adding new features. The goal is to gradually increase the monthly fee.
EU:
Finland:
BooknHeal will:
Our expertise ranges from social entrepreneurship to psychology and medicine.
Henri Valvanne, CEO, Founder, M.Sc. in BA
Anna-Maija Sulonen, MD, Researcher
Teemu Ollikainen, Co-Founder, Psychologist and Psychotherapist
The startup behind BooknHeal, @Care (AtCare Oy) is a social enterprise and is the only startup in Finland that has received the Finnish Social Enterprise Mark.
The Mark is granted to: “Enterprises that aim to solve social and ecological problems and promote social efforts with the help of their business operations. They use most of their profits to benefit society according to their goals and values. Openness and transparency also characterise their business model.”
According to our corporate by-laws most of the profits (>51%) will be directed into developing new services and supporting mental health. Our services are developed in association with mental health practitioners and organizations. One of our partners is Europe’s biggest mental health patient organization, the Finnish Central Association for Mental Health.
The funding will be used to market the service, to develop new features and to plan our internationalization. We will finalize the current platform and develop new features such as the matching, invoicing and communicator solutions. Our goal is to launch the service in several new market areas in the coming years.
Phase I: Fall 2015
Phase II: Spring 2016
More information can be found in the documents.