Art Pharmacy

​In my last post, I mentioned the list of fantastic organizations that I was able to meet at the Yale Innovation Summit. This week, I want to focus on one of these groups in particular: Art Pharmacy, “a tech-enabled healthcare company that works with managed care plans, health systems, and community partners to address the mental health crisis through social prescribing.” Using access to the arts as a vehicle for well-being – I’m all about that! I was even able to get in touch with the founder, Chris Appleton, and COO Brian McGrath Davis, to get some of my questions answered.
​

What is it?

​One of the most crucial aspects to understand in learning about Art Pharmacy is what “social prescribing” is. Conveniently enough, they define it on their website. “Social prescribing is a practice through which health care providers prescribe social care or social interventions as supplements to traditional clinical and pharmaceutical care.” In recent years, I’ve personally noticed a trend amongst my friends and myself of increasing social isolation. In many cases it’s this rising isolation and accompanying loneliness that exacerbates mental health issues. It seems incredibly difficult to find time to go out and meet new people. Money is tight, and going out can seem like a great effort when most people are spending all their energy on simply paying bills. 

Art Pharmacy presents a solution. “By leveraging the power of arts and culture engagements, Art Pharmacy provides an effective way to address social isolation/loneliness and mental health concerns. Traditional treatment for mental health concerns, for instance, can suffer from stigma (still), time to care (due to availability of behavioral health professionals), and compliance (e.g., to medication). An arts prescription directly addresses these challenges to the behavioral health side of US healthcare. Our services effectively increase the behavioral health workforce and provide effective, relevant, culturally-grounded care for patients suffering from various health concerns.” Essentially, by recognizing the importance of the arts in addressing this “Loneliness and Isolation Epidemic”, treatment can be provided by simply granting people access to arts and cultural events that they wouldn’t normally have the spare finances to afford.
​

How does it work?

So how does this work? It’s actually quite simple. You can get a look at an example of “the patient experience” on the Art Pharmacy website. I’ll include a break down of it here:

1. Referral - “Your healthcare provider identifies a need, and writes a 'prescription' for engagement with an arts & cultural activity.” This works the same as any other diagnosis and prescription. The only difference is that rather than traditional medication, you are being prescribed an activity to attend. 

2. Care Navigation - “A dedicated Care Navigator contacts you to connect you with smart-matched arts & culture engagements.” In determining which engagements would be best for a patient, Art Pharmacy uses a “proprietary software” which utilizes information gathered through those Arts & Health studies we discussed earlier. Through this software, Art Pharmacy is “able to find specific arts engagements in the patient’s community that have been verified by research and align with the patient’s preferences.”

3. Participation - “You attend monthly arts & culture activities with protective and therapeutic benefits to your mental health.” These activities range from “museum visits to ceramics classes to dance, theater, and live performances.” “Arts & culture” is a broad category indeed!
​
4. Monitoring - “Your Care Navigator monitors your progress and shares that information with your referring provider.”

5. Refill - “At the end of your prescription, visit your healthcare provider to get a refill!”

Isn’t that amazing!
​

How is it helpful?

The evidence for the positive impact that access to arts can have is extensive. From addressing loneliness due to its inherent social implications, to benefitting childhood development, to being able to engage with marginalized or hard to reach groups that the current health system neglects. Art Pharmacy offers ample evidence on their website including studies which backup the efficacy of their organization. They also offer a handy “Research Summary”. I’ll link it here.

In their responses, Chris and Brian touched on the overlap between their work and the field of Arts & Health. “Arts & Health is a well-established field with several decades of research focused on the specific benefits of arts and culture engagement. Centers for arts and medicine/health exist at some of the world's leading research institutions, including Johns Hopkins, Duke University, University of Florida, and UCLA. Researchers at Harvard, the World Health Organization, and beyond have made clear that engagement in the arts can improve patients’ health outcomes.” In cultures across the globe and throughout history, we’ve witnessed the crucial communal importance of the arts. This social prescribing model could serve as a way to connect people to communities of support that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

Patients are not the only potential benefactors of this approach. Your mind may already be jumping to the impact on artists themselves. With Art Pharmacy, access to the arts has its barriers to entry lowered. This means new audiences will finally be welcomed into the halls and galleries that have been so eager to meet them. The most fascinating part for me is that this new revenue stream is entirely beneficial to all parties involved. Artists will have access to greater financial support, patients will receive care that can help them heal, and even the insurance companies footing the bill can benefit from reducing health risks brought about through successful treatment.
​​

The Road Ahead

I’m so excited for what this organization can mean for the health world and the arts world. Long-term, “Art Pharmacy has a goal of bringing arts-based social prescribing to US healthcare.” As of now, social prescribing is unheard of here in the states. To underline this, an alarming assertion can be found on the Art Pharmacy website: “Art Pharmacy is the sole commercial social prescribing company in the United States.” This is a new and exciting road here! “Our goal is for the next generation to associate our health outcomes, in part, with our engagement with the arts – just as previous generations learned to associate exercise with health outcomes.”

In asking about ways that artists can support this wonderful initiative, Chris and Brian simply had this to say, “Art has been prescribed from the beginning of culture itself. Art has always been a beneficial component of society. Artists have always had a hand in healing their communities. Artists need only continue to share their art with their communities, to continue to do the good work they are doing.” You hear that? Keep at it! A beautiful sentiment.

I hope this idea was as encouraging for you as it was for me. Thank you for reading, and happy jamming!