Rethink - A global health technology company

One of the essential elements of our society is the quality of healthcare available to patients. And, undeniably, a driving force behind quality healthcare is the adoption of technology that enables clinicians to provide better patient care. With increased dependence on technology, it’s essential to take the time to appreciate the mutual benefits for patients and providers to the public and policymakers that rely on health IT and influence its use.

Rethink is a global health technology company providing cloud-based treatment tools, training, and clinical supports for individuals with developmental disabilities and their caregivers. Rethink’s clients include leading organizations in behavioral health, employee benefits, and education.

The inception of Rethink

Rethink was founded with a mission to address the significant challenge of how to effectively and affordably meet the treatment needs of the growing population with a developmental disability worldwide challenged by a considerable shortage of trained clinicians. The Company determined that the only way to deliver best clinical practice treatment in a scalable way was to leverage technology to train whoever cared for the individual with the developmental disability to provide the treatment. This would impact all the entities revolving around this population’s care, including in the school, home, and healthcare system. Rethink found extensive research on the effectiveness of video modeling for training in fields such as medicine and the military and decided to combine this proven method of instruction with the proven and medically-recommended ABA treatment methodology, creating an online training and support system for individuals with a developmental disability and their caregivers worldwide.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 1 in 6 newborn children will be diagnosed with a developmental disability (such as autism), making such conditions more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is the primary treatment methodology recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

However, there is a significant shortage of credentialed ABA providers. There are only around 30,000 Board Certified Behavior Therapists worldwide. This severely limits the potential benefit for the hundreds of millions of individuals globally with such disorders. Also, limited public support services, including in the education and healthcare systems, further amplify this challenge.

The emerging trends in the healthcare technology

The significance of Big Data and AI has been on the rise in the recent past. AI is being used extensively to give professionals valuable insights into their patients. This has also made it possible to more accurately predict the outcomes of interventions. One of the emerging trends in healthcare technology today is Big Data and AI’s use to give medical professionals valuable insight into how best to treat their patients. Today, there is no way to accurately predict the outcomes of interventions among individuals with developmental disabilities. Rethink helps address this issue by gathering the most significant data set of outcomes associated with this population. This data set will be used one day to develop the right treatment protocols and facilitate the predictability of outcomes.

The challenges solved by Rethink

Rethink aims to create a scalable solution that would make clinical best practice treatment tools and supports available to the individual and their caregivers, no matter where they are located. The award-winning Rethink program includes a comprehensive online individualized treatment program with over 1,500 video-based demonstrations. Internationally-recognized experts have developed it to train caregivers, parents, professional and paraprofessional staff on managing problem behaviors and teaching an individual with a developmental disability critical skills.

The data-based reports facilitate coordination across the team and allow automated data-based reports to track progress in real-time. Program Specialists can also utilize Rethink as a form of job-embedded professional development and augment coaching caregivers and other support staff. Rethink also offers a range of technology-enabled remote service options, ranging from short-term web-based consultations with Rethink’s Board-certified behavioral therapists to ongoing program development initiatives supported by an in-house team of clinicians. In addition, Rethink’s practice management offering allows for tracking service authorizations and cost of treatment related to clinical outcomes. Rethink serves individuals at all levels of development and ages ranging from point of diagnosis through early adulthood.

Rethink’s Behavioral Health

Rethink offers the industry-leading practice management platform for behavioral health providers specializing in individuals with autism and related disorders. It is already being used by hundreds of providers serving tens of thousands of children nationwide. The software helps improve treatment outcomes by simplifying/automating workflows, improving staff training, and ensuring standardization and clinical fidelity of care delivery.

Employee Benefits – Rethink offers the industry-leading training and support platform for employees caring for dependents with a developmental disability. Serving clients with under 1000 employees to over 500,000 employees, Rethink covers over 7 million total lives. The Company helps address the challenges associated with caring for a dependent with a developmental disability – from over twice the rates of anxiety and depression to thousands of dollars annually in lost productivity. Indeed,

over half of caregivers work fewer hours or leave the workforce to accommodate their dependent’s needs. The Rethink program helps support these employees, directly and positively impacting their workplace productivity, and helps employers create a culture of wellness for their entire workforce.

Rethink Ed – Rethink offers the industry-leading special needs management platform for public school districts. It serves students with special needs as well as those requiring behavior support. The Rethink program is used by hundreds of districts in all 50 states, ranging from large urban systems like New York City, down to small rural districts. The program also allows districts to fully meet Federal IDEA requirements and various state-based legislative mandates to provide an adequate education to students with a special need. The program helps districts train staff and accurately measure the progress of a student population not subject to mainstream standardized testing. District clients have reported superior student outcomes and significant cost savings in mitigating the need for out-of-district placements that can run up to $100,000 per year per student for private programs.

Rethink is in the process of expanding its core product offering beyond treatment tools. It supports dependents with a developmental disability and their caregivers to adults with a Neurodiverse condition in the workplace. Also, the recent COVID-19 situation has created additional strains on the mental health and wellbeing of employees. To tackle this, they have recently acquired Whil, a mental health and resiliency platform for all employees.

About the CEO

Daniel Etra is the CEO of Rethink. Before co-founding the company, Mr. Etra was CEO of RER International, a printed materials supplier to the retail industry. He has also been a Consultant at Bain & Company, helping establish their NY office, and also served as a Managing Director of Promodex Ltd., an importer and distributor of consumer appliances and industrial equipment. Apart from this, Mr. Etra has also worked at Wasserstein, Perella & Co., specializing in M&A in healthcare, technology, and natural resources.

Mr. Etra has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Yale University. Born and raised in New York City, he has been a volunteer in the Pediatric Department at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, working with children ages three months to 15+ years old.

“It’s amazing to take this data to meetings with parents to show them. They can ‘see’ the progress in this form, and it helps so much with realizing small steps lead to big steps,” Carol Grady, M.ED., Special Education Coordinator, Georgetown ISD.