Bob Gold, CEO & Chief Behavioral Technologist, GoMo Health

CEO and chief behavioral technologist for GoMo Health, Bob Gold, spoke with Invest: about the importance of the digital healthcare services they provide to health plan members, patients, and healthcare consumers, especially in the ways they treat underserved communities, along with revolutionary treatment offerings in women’s health and mental health services for teens.

Reflecting on the past year, what have been the most significant milestones or achievements for GoMo Health?

In 2024, we had an excellent year, and our recurring revenue grew by over 30%. We added several major new clients in the industry, including Lilly, a multinational pharmaceutical life science company, and Humana, which is one of the top health plans in the United States. This has been an exciting year.

How has the integration of behavioral science into digital health solutions evolved in recent years, particularly in New Jersey?

The intersection of behavioral science and digital engagement has always been the focus for us and what drives our proprietary engagement solutions. It is refreshing to see that organizations all over the United States and in New Jersey are also starting to focus on digital engagement solutions and how to scale them to help reach. We have seen more of a focus on mental and behavioral health across the board, which has been great. We are excited to help more organizations in New Jersey and beyond tackle their biggest healthcare challenges.  

We now have over a dozen partners in New Jersey, including two of the three major health systems. There is a strong collaboration with the Mental Health Association in New Jersey to serve people statewide, and we have over a half dozen behavioral health organizations that serve people with services focused on mental illness, substance use, and social determinants of health like food, transportation, and homelessness. One interesting project called MyHealth Kiosk takes treatment to the streets in New Brunswick. Utilizing technology coupled with community outreach, this program helps increase knowledge of available screenings to customers, like those for cancer or depression, and can help connect those screened to local services. We are proud of the work we’ve done to help serve vulnerable communities in New Jersey and beyond. 

How has the integration of mental health support into the management of chronic illness evolved within your programs over the past two years?

As with any change agent, there are ups and downs. We are trying to change how healthcare is delivered to people at home, work, and play. We’ve gotten much more acceptance that it’s important to address the brain, which directly correlates to mental health. If you are going to help someone with chronic illnesses like diabetes, COPD, asthma, or hypertension, it all starts with the brain. Addressing that first and only then relating it to the body has produced excellent outcomes for hospitals, health plans, and state organizations. 

We’ve been running the Moms Mood Disorder program for the state along with the Central Jersey Family Health Consortium, which helps perinatal, prenatal, and postpartum moms who struggle with anxiety and depression to cope better. We’ve had several thousand women participate in this program, which has been amazing to be able to help mothers and families on their journey during a particularly hard time.

What factors are driving patient experience for mental and behavioral health services in today’s climate?

In reviewing the past year, the U.S. was falling apart in the wake of the election and increased political polarization. From the perspective of the youth, teens are seeing this unrest along with school shootings, cyberbullying, and international conflicts. It’s tough to be a teen in this day and age. They can see and feel the stress of their parents and adults around them. There are a lot of triggers right now for kids. Spending more time staring at a phone is not necessarily helping them to communicate and express themselves, so they need some kind of educational training and personalized activities. In response, we offer programs specifically for teens that focus on mental and behavioral health, which include music to listen to and trivia games. Kids feel like these programs are fun and entertaining instead of daunting; we call this approach “edu-tainment.” This method addresses the same issues as those geared towards adults, including how to cope, in an engaging way. One goal is to help the kids determine challenging areas in their lives and how to effectively cope with those issues. With GoMo Health as a digital-based engagement source, it’s not threatening because it’s anonymous. At times, it’s more challenging to tell another person about your struggles face-to-face, so our programs can garner more honesty and thus be able to better guide patients based on their actual needs. This approach is quite different from seeing a counselor for an issue two weeks after the problem arose; our engagement programs provide support and resources in the moment of need.  

We also announced a new acquisition of another New Jersey company called Skye Interactive, which is a digital education and training company that creates custom training and education.  The combined team will offer training that will help develop actionable skills for healthcare and social service professionals to better support patients and members, with a specialty focus on underserved, vulnerable populations, and employees to develop and foster mental and physical resiliency.

What challenges do healthcare providers face when implementing remote patient engagement technologies, and how does GoMo Health address these challenges?

Our business model tackles this exact issue. When reviewing the different populations, like Medicaid or underserved groups of people, there is a large trust and credibility factor when they are determining if they should go to a hospital or doctor, and when. What we do in our programs is ask questions and learn about people before providing advice, so the recommendations are personalized. At times, we must teach patients – “unlearning to learn.” 

When looking at the general population, about 60% of people who exit an appointment with a provider will have many questions that the healthcare provider does not have time to address or expand upon during their 15-minute window. With our growing, aging populations, it’s becoming harder for providers to serve those needs. We must perform proactive, preventative care. GoMo Health is at the front end of at-home care, and we believe that the home is the next clinic, so to speak.

Considering the rise of telehealth services, how is GoMo Health ensuring the security and privacy of patient data in its digital therapeutic programs?

Our clients include more than 60 major health institutions with some of the largest hospitals, five of the top 10 health plans in the U.S., state organizations, life science companies, and pharma, so security is incredibly important. We are in the process of becoming HITRUST certified, which comes with over 100 certifications. 

As far as AI, we are ahead of the game, as we have a vetted, evidence-based behavioral modification science called BehavioralRx®, and those algorithms are coded into our machine-learning platform. We’ve been using AI for a while, and our program provides us with information like anomaly detection, pattern detection, and sentiment analysis, and the resulting information is used to better engage with individual patients. 

What is your outlook for the healthcare sector over the next few years, and what are GoMo Health’s top priorities?  

Our major announcement is that we have launched a dedicated Women, Children, and Family Division of the company, announced in Q2. Women’s health, and especially the brain and body connection in women specifically, has not been given the attention it deserves. The data shows that when a woman is pregnant, more changes take place in her brain than the changes undergone in an adolescent’s brain. Many issues also arise during menopause. We have robust programs dedicated to these groups of people for every life stage of women. For example, 90% of migraine sufferers are women due to hormonal issues, and Alzheimer’s skews more towards women than men. We have to go deeper to understand the connection between the brain and body, specifically for women. GoMo Health has more digital programs tailored towards women’s health than any other company in the U.S.