When the two devastating earthquakes hit Hatay, deterioration went unseen by the experts. Not because they were inexperienced: they were affected themselves, there was no time for supervision, and their determination to help meant they would not leave the disaster zone. The longer they worked without anyone watching over the work, the worse the outcomes became. Support stopped landing, and most survivors never built trust in the psychologists trying to help them.
Everyone was doing the right job. But because there was no objective measure of the care being given, the few who actually felt better were simply the ones lucky enough to build a bond with their expert. Chance is not a clinical standard.
Later I found the same gap at the top of the system. The World Health Organization recommends that mental health services be part of medical care, and that care for noncommunicable diseases integrate mental health as well. Both are the right calls, and neither comes with an objective measure of whether the care is working. There was no tool to make that possible for the people in healthcare, in mental care, or in the therapy room.
These are the reasons we left our professional careers and jumped into the ocean: to make this technology available where it touches lives, and to support experts in making their work stronger. That is why we are building SeroState.