LiveOnNY Offers Free Mental Health Support for Staff

New York, New York (June 15, 2022) – LiveOnNY, the federally designated organ procurement organization (OPO) for the New York City metropolitan area, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties, and the lower Hudson Valley, announced a new collaboration with New York-based Wise Therapeutics to offer an innovative new approach to help address stress and anxiety through therapeutic gaming.

“In order for our staff to best take care of our community, we must be able to make sure we care for our staff,” said LiveOnNY President and CEO Leonard Achan, RN, MA, ANP. “LiveOnNY employees go above and beyond every single day to change and save lives through organ and tissue donation. It’s a stressful job and we want to do everything we can to keep our staff safe and healthy so that we can continue to honor our organ donor heroes and the great gift they have entrusted us with for the community.”

Personal Zen is an app-based, non-drug treatment delivered through a casual mobile game. It is the first and only mobile game clinically validated for the treatment of anxiety and distress.

”Workplace stress is a massive issue, and burnout is on the rise especially for front-line healthcare workers like those at LiveOnNY,” said Raj Amin, CEO and Co-Founder of Wise Therapeutics. “A critical part of the solution is earlier and more effective engagement so that mental health resources can be directed to those in need.”

Anonymized data collected by the app will be shared with LiveOnNY’s leadership so that they may get a better understanding of the stress levels of staff and provide necessary resources.

The app is part of a larger initiative to support the mental health and resilience of the LiveOnNY staff, many of whom work long shifts and frequently interact with families who have recently received a grave prognosis. In 2021, the organization hired a compassion fatigue therapist to offer weekly group and one-on-one sessions to staffers looking for help with stress management and self-care.

“The mental health of our employees is just as important as their physical health,” said Achan. “I
want each and every one of our staff members to have a long and prosperous career at LiveOnNY and I want to support them with innovative tools like Personal Zen to help them succeed in life and work.”

LiveOnNY has helped to save over 27,000 lives and improve more than half a million lives through organ and tissue donation since the organization’s founding in 1978. Presently, over 106,000 ailing adults and children across the nation are waiting to receive a lifesaving organ – including nearly 9,000 New Yorkers.

ABOUT LIVEONNY
LiveOnNY is a nonprofit, federally designated organ procurement organization (OPO) dedicated to saving lives, providing comfort, and strengthening legacies through organ, eye, and tissue donation. The OPO, which was established in 1978, serves a culturally and ethnically diverse population of 13 million residents in New York City, Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley. Working closely with transplant centers and hospitals, LiveOnNY coordinates organ, eye, and tissue donation for transplant, educates the public and healthcare professionals about donation and transplantation, and promotes the importance of signing up on the New York State Donate Life Registry. LiveOnNY works closely with 11 transplant centers, nearly 100 hospitals, and several tissue and eye banks. LiveOnNY is a member of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which oversees the organ transplant waiting list in the U.S. For more information, please visit LiveOnNY.org.

ABOUT WISE THERAPEUTICS
Wise Therapeutics is a digital therapeutics company that combines clinical neuroscience with the power of game-based approaches to address pervasive mental health challenges. Wise Therapeutics’ mission is to have a powerful, positive impact on the global mental health crisis through digital therapies that lower barriers to access and are as engaging as they are clinically effective. The company offers its non-prescription mobile game Personal Zen, with its Wise Connect deployment and analytics platform and is pursuing FDA clearance for a pipeline of prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs) to treat a variety of mental health conditions. To learn more visit www.wisedtx.com or contact nayan@wisedtx.com

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Media Inquiries:

Josh Knoller, josh@nicholaslence.com

LiveOnNY Inquiries:

Ali McSherry, amcsherry@liveonny.org