Wellness Consultant vs. Wellness App vs. Clinical Provider: Which Do You Need?
An app gives access to tools, a clinician treats people in crisis, and a consultant builds the program around both. What each one does and when you need which.
A wellness app gives your people access to self-serve tools. A clinical provider, such as a licensed therapist or psychologist, diagnoses and treats individuals who need care. A wellness consultant assesses your organization's risk and builds the program that ties everything together, including which app to use and how people reach clinical care. Most high-stress organizations need all three, and the mistake is expecting any one of them to do the others' job.
What does each one do?
Each one solves a different problem. They do not compete with each other.
| Wellness app | Clinical provider | Wellness consultant | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main job | Self-serve tools and content | Diagnosis and treatment | Assessment, program design and implementation |
| Works with | Individual users | Individual patients | The organization and its leaders |
| Built for | Many organizations at once | The person in the room | Your organization's specific risk |
| When it helps most | Day-to-day support between other touchpoints | When someone is struggling or in crisis | Before and around the crisis, to prevent as many as possible |
| What it does not do | Assess risk or build a plan | Design a department- or firm-wide strategy | Provide therapy or clinical care |
What is a wellness app good for?
An app is good at access. It puts breathing exercises, sleep tools, peer support contacts or educational content on someone's phone at 2 a.m. after a hard call. For field personnel who are rarely at a desk, that matters.
Its limit is engagement. A study of 93 popular mental health apps found a median daily open rate of 4.0% and a median 30-day retention rate of 3.3%. In plain terms, most people who download a wellness app stop opening it within a month. That is not a flaw of any one product. It is what happens when a tool has no human relationship and no plan behind it.
Voluntary wellness offerings in general tend to draw the people who were already inclined to use them. In a randomized study of a university workplace wellness program, the employees who opted in were already healthier than those who did not. A tool that waits to be opened will mostly be opened by people who were already engaged.
What does a clinical provider do that the others cannot?
A licensed clinician treats people. When an officer, an attorney or a teacher is struggling in a way that needs diagnosis or therapy, that is a clinical job, and nothing else on this list replaces it. Culturally competent clinicians who understand public safety or legal work are especially valuable.
Federal guidance reflects that. The Department of Justice's 2019 report to Congress under the Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act included recommendations ranging from embedding mental health professionals in law enforcement agencies to supporting model policies to reduce suicide.
What a clinical practice is not usually built to do is design and run an ongoing, organization-wide wellness strategy. A clinician's job is the person in front of them. Someone still has to decide how people get to that clinician, what happens before they need one, and whether any of it is working.
What does a wellness consultant do?
A wellness consultant builds the program. In my work through PIF Samaritan Services, that follows four steps: assess where the risk sits, build a customized playbook, implement it in person, and track the results. The consultant is not a replacement for the app or the clinician. The consultant decides where each one fits.
That includes technology. Part of PIF Samaritan Services' work is technology integration: helping an organization choose the right wellness app, or building a custom app for field personnel who need something made for their specific work. The difference is that the technology serves a written plan instead of standing in for one.
The in-person piece matters most. Tools without a relationship behind them tend to get downloaded once and forgotten. A plan brought to people face to face, by someone they have met, is far more likely to be used.
How do you know which one you need?
Start with the problem you are trying to solve.
- Someone is in crisis right now. You need clinical care. Call a licensed provider or crisis line first.
- You have no wellness support at all. You need a plan before you buy anything. Start with an assessment.
- You already pay for an app and nobody uses it. That is your answer. The gap is strategy, not software.
- Your EAP and clinicians are good, but the people who need them do not call. You need a program that brings support to people instead of waiting for them.
- You cannot tell leadership whether any of it is working. You need tracking, which is part of a program, not a product feature.
How do you vet a wellness consultant?
Look for a documented process, named credentials and a deliverable at every stage, not just a proposal. Ask:
- What do you deliver after the assessment, and can I see the format?
- How is the plan sized for an organization like mine?
- Who implements it, and is any of it in person?
- What will we track, and when will we review it?
- Where does your work stop and clinical care start?
A good consultant will be clear about that last answer. I am not a clinician, and PIF Samaritan Services does not provide therapy. The work is the program that makes sure people get to the right care, and as little as possible goes unaddressed until it becomes a crisis.
Frequently asked questions
Is a wellness app enough for a police department or law firm?
Usually not on its own. An app is a useful tool, but research on popular mental health apps shows most users stop opening them within a month, and an app does not assess your organization's risk or build a plan around it.
Is a wellness consultant the same as a therapist?
No. A therapist provides clinical care to individuals. A wellness consultant designs and implements an organization-wide program, which should include clear paths to licensed clinical care.
Do we need a consultant if we already have an EAP?
An EAP is a resource, not a program. A consultant helps you find out whether the EAP is reaching your highest-risk roles and builds the structure around it so people use it before they reach a crisis.
Can a wellness consultant help choose an app?
Yes. PIF Samaritan Services includes technology integration, which covers wellness app selection and custom app development for field personnel, tied to a documented program.
To see how PIF Samaritan Services approaches apps and custom tools, read about technology integration. If you are not sure which piece your organization is missing, book a conversation with Karen.
Sources
- Baumel, A., Muench, F., Edan, S., and Kane, J. M. "Objective User Engagement With Mental Health Apps: Systematic Search and Panel-Based Usage Analysis." Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2019. PubMed Central.
- Jones, D., Molitor, D., and Reif, J. "What Do Workplace Wellness Programs Do? Evidence from the Illinois Workplace Wellness Study." Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2019. Summary: National Bureau of Economic Research.
- U.S. Department of Justice. "Department of Justice Releases Reports Focused on Improving Safety and Wellness of the Nation's 800,000 Law Enforcement Officers," April 17, 2019. justice.gov.
