Behavioral health remains a critical need nationwide, yet organizations continue to face tight margins, workforce shortages and policy hurdles.
At the 2025 Becker’s Healthcare Behavioral Health Summit, leaders from Allina Health and Iris Telehealth shared how a strategic telepsychiatry partnership helped the Minnesota-based system close access gaps and scale mental health care.
Here are four key takeaways from the session:
- From bottleneck to blueprint
Allina Health faced mounting psychiatric workforce shortages and emergency department boarding issues, prompting a 2018 request for proposal to find a telepsychiatry partner.
Iris provided on-demand emergency department psychiatric consults, eventually expanding to inpatient units, partial hospitalization programs and medical-surgical floors.
“The value with this partnership is the ability to help us grow while we go and build our teams,” said Joe Clubb, vice president of operations at Allina Health. “We’re able to move patients through the needed beds, help financially support the organization and get people into care.”
- The power of virtual triage
Before Iris, Allina was dealing with a high number of mental health patients in its emergency departments. With overnight access to telepsychiatrists, the system improved throughput and reduced unnecessary admissions. Today, 62% of mental health ED patients are discharged to outpatient care — up from 55% in 2015.
“There was this interest in intention to understand what’s offered within Minnesota,” said Mary Beth Lardizabal, DO, vice president MHA clinical service line and system medical director for provider wellbeing at Allina Health. “Iris does this in partnership with clinical social workers that work across our emergency departments who would oftentimes in partnership talk about options in lieu of a hospital stay that we can set up for somebody within the community.”
- Flexibility fuels expansion
Unlike traditional locum tenens, Iris providers became integrated members of Allina’s clinical teams, adopting documentation standards, participating in quality reviews and covering staffing gaps.
When Allina expanded its high-acuity partial hospitalization program from 200 to 700 chairs, Iris filled the clinical void. The model also supported rural hospital partnerships and new market launches. In 2024, Iris clinicians delivered 5,000 of Allina’s outpatient visits.
“What Iris is really addressing is the gaps we have in our continuum and increasing access to our patients,” Dr. Lardizabal said. “Iris becomes part of your team. They were totally collaborative and very focused and committed to making sure that they were following our processes and our documentation, which isn’t always easy to do.”
- From pilot to pillar
Iris chief executive officer Andy Flanagan emphasized that telepsychiatry is no longer a novelty — it’s a foundational strategy for addressing burnout, staffing constraints and growing demand.
Allina’s model illustrates how virtual behavioral health can improve outcomes and preserve capacity without compromising quality.
“I continue to advocate for you to talk to each other and share your stories,” Mr. Flanagan said. “This is really one of these classic healthcare problems. We’re all doing something a little bit different. If we work together, we’re going to learn a lot and we will make significant progress.”
