Panel hears Soluna presentation on a digital mental health platform for adolescents

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee heard a presentation from Dr. Laura Tully, vice president of partnerships for Soluna, on a digital mental health platform aimed at adolescents and young adults.

Tully described Soluna as “an evidence based digital mental health platform” that offers self-guided resources, coping skills, a moderated peer community forum, one-to-one coaching and licensed counseling. She said the platform can be accessed through a phone, tablet, or web browser and is intended to be offered without barriers to eligible users.

Committee members asked how Soluna keeps users safe in an online forum, whether coaches are local and culturally familiar, what data the company collects, and whether the service uses advertising. Tully said Soluna uses pre-moderation of posts so content is reviewed by a human before it goes live, prevents direct private messaging between users, operates on an anonymous user model, and routes safety concerns to staff for follow-up. On workforce locality she said the company recruits across states while aiming to have coaches based in the implementing state when feasible; users can select coaches with lived experience that match their preferences.

Tully said Soluna provides access to 1:1 coaching and counseling via chat, phone, and sometimes video; it also maintains a curated database of local, low-cost and no-cost community resources that users can search by ZIP code. On privacy she said Soluna asks only for ZIP code, date of birth and (when required for coaching or safety follow-up) an email address, and that the company is a business associate under HIPAA and complies with the most restrictive applicable federal or state privacy rules; it also meets European GDPR standards.

Tully said Soluna’s model is built on publicly funded implementations and cited California, New Jersey and the platform’s origins and long history in the U.K.; she described a health economics study conducted in partnership with an NHS consortium that found downstream cost savings in areas such as reduced pediatrician visits, fewer antidepressant prescriptions and fewer emergency visits in that implementation. She reported 15 months of California data are available and offered to provide written testimony with additional data points.

Committee members expressed interest in data demonstrating effectiveness, clarification about what information is collected and shared with government partners under contract, and how the platform encourages “healthy phone use.” Tully said Soluna does not serve advertising, does not sell data, and shares contractually required aggregated data with state partners in publicly funded implementations. She offered to supply the committee with written testimony and evaluation data.