Frequency asked questions

What is Get A-Head®?

Great question! Everyone struggles with their mental health and well-being, but it can be difficult to reach out for support. Get A-Head® was created by a team of mental health experts to combat some of the barriers people face in getting care, which include – anonymity, accessibility, and relatability.

Get A-Head is a Mental Health SaaS platform that provides schools, employers, and sports teams with the necessary Infrastructure to support mental health access for their students, employees and athletes alike. It was designed to feel like and function like apps you are used to while providing a ton of features to those supporting individuals receiving care. To answer the demand for mental health care, we must support the supply. We are essentially a digital conduit to mental health support.

Who seeks support on Get A-Head®?

This tool is useful for anyone who wishes to realize their full potential, support their mental health, strengthen their mental fitness, and Get A-Head® in life! This can be employees, students, and/or athletes.

Who are the service providers on Get A-Head®?

There are a diverse range of service providers. This can be psychiatrists, psychologists, licensed counselors, social work counselors, Counselors-in-Training (CITs) Holistic Healers, Life coaches, performance coaches, supervisors, the list goes on. In the context of CITs, there are also supervisors who have full oversight of the CITs schedule, notes, and interactions. This means they can join sessions and review/support trainees from behind a “digital two-way mirror.” In specific contexts, even certified/accredited counselors may be monitored by quality assurance supervisors.

What are some key features of Get A-Head®?

There are many technological benefits to using Get A-Head® which include:
Scheduling that integrates with native calendars
Text, Audio, and Video sessions in HIPAA & PIPEDA compliant environments
Note taking
Access to recorded session on our secure servers
The ability for organizations to have their own ecosystem enabling control of who the people receiving care, who the care providers are, and who the supervisors might be. With this ability comes some aspects of customization please see the question “Can I customize my Get A-Head® ecosystem?”
A matching algorithm that facilitates connectivity between client and provider
Group sessions
Messaging features
Administrative functions that enables control of your environment, data reporting, and some customizable options

Can I customize my Get A-Head® ecosystem?

The Get A-Head® platform was designed from the ground up to be flexible. We support customization in several ways. Firstly, there are organizational level “switches” that allow a level of customization in the platform that a user will experience. Secondly, we are an API first company, so many customizations can be performed by using the API as well. What this means is that yes, we facilitate customization; however, this does come at a cost. As mentioned above there are some features of the platform that can be customized by the organizational administrator, that do not incur additional costs. We are always looking for feedback and to improve our platform to support other feature requests that may be outside of the current capabilities of the system.. Please reach out to us at info@geta-head.com to speak with someone today as to how we can support you and your organizational needs.

What is an organizational administrator?

An organization administrator is appointed within your organization that has a user panel allowing them to customize certain options and features within your environment. For example, many clinics have administrators that handle scheduling, matching clients with service providers, sending out important information to users, etc. The organization administrator will have capabilities like toggling on or off certain features of the platform for the organization. This role can match clients with service providers manually, can unmatch clients manually, toggle on or off recordings, turn on or off interactive messaging, run app usage reports, and each day we are adding more to this list. Finally, the organization administrator, although able to support the ecosystem, has limited abilities to see clinical PII or PHI of those receiving care on the platform.

How does the Get A-Head® matching algorithm work?

We use a matching algorithm based on relatability. Currently, there are 16 questions asking both demographic and preference queries. The plan is to make this algorithm more robust over time and match based not only relatability but also time (i.e., who’s most readily available, hours accrued by each provider so be equally fair in opportunities for providers) as well.

How do recordings work on Get A-Head®?

After a session, the recording will be readily available on the session review area of our application. The good news about this is that we have taken the steps to provide you this feature, in a secure, HIPAA & PIPEDA compliant environment instead of downloading a video recording to your device that may not be secure. However, we urge you to review files and access recordings in a professional, secure environment. This is your responsibility as a practitioner, we are just here to try and make your life a bit easier.

How does Get A-Head® protect my privacy?

We are totally obsessed about securing your privacy and confidentiality. We have built a state-of-the-art technology, operation, and infrastructure with one thing in mind: protecting your privacy and safeguarding the information you provide. Our privacy and confidentiality standards are by far more advanced than what is required by law or regulations, so that you can feel safe and comfortable. You don't need to identify yourself (see more about staying anonymous below). Everything you tell your Service Provider is protected by strict federal and state laws. You can always click the "delete" button next to each message that you've sent so it will no longer show in your account. All the messages between you and your Service Provider are secured and encrypted by banking-grade 256-bit encryption. Our servers are hosted in a purpose built "A Grade" facility, designed for hosting medical data, ensuring the best-in-class security and protection. Our browsing encryption system (SSL) follows modern best practices and is rated A+, providing world class online security and encryption. Our data stores are encrypted at rest and all our data is encrypted during transit. What this means to you is that the data is essentially unreadable in the very unlikely event that they are stolen.

How does Get A-Head® manage privacy compliance?

Get A-Head’s security requirements are powered by MedStack, a leading privacy compliance hosting platform built specifically for the needs of the digital health industry. Get A-Head’s application environment has been wrapped with all of the technical controls and safeguards required for compliance. Each element of our security architecture ties back to a specific policy of ISO 27001. These policies are then mapped to the corresponding privacy frameworks and industry standards where Get A-Head® operates. MedStack’s Active Compliance Monitoring System provides code-generated and machine-readable privacy policies, allowing us to demonstrate proof of meeting these requirements at any given point in time.

What is MedStack and why does Get A-Head® use Medstack?

MedStack is a privacy compliance automation platform that builds, measures, and actively manages compliance atop the public cloud. MedStack provides secure, flexible, single-tenant cloud infrastructure tailored to Get A-Head’s unique requirements, with pre-written, code-generated and real-time auditable privacy policies around complex frameworks such as HIPAA, NIST, PHIPA, PIPEDA, and HITECH. MedStack successfully completed its Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type I audit in January 2020, now making it easier and faster for Get A-Head to complete our own SOC 2 audit.

MedStack's Docker platform is built with security guarantees that ensure our platform runs and manages data in the cloud to the highest standards of data security and privacy compliance, such as PIPEDA and PHIPA. These controls include: defense-in-depth separation architecture, hypervisor active intrusion-detection, TLS restricted transmissions, 2FA admin access, and more. They are installed, tested, managed and maintained by Medstack’s system for the purposes and use of Get A-Head®.

Get A-Head’s application environment, that has been wrapped with all of the technical controls and safeguards of the Medstack platform not only meets the requirements of HIPAA in the US (some of the most stringent healthcare regulations globally), but also meets (and exceeds) the Canadian privacy legislation (PIPEDA) and the various provincial health data privacy regulations (ex. PHIPA, PIPA, PHIA, HIPAA, etc.).