Kyiv Is Using Homegrown Tech to Treat the Trauma of War

But this is only half of the problem that needs solving. For t،se w، do want to seek treatment, there simply aren’t enough resources to help them. Clinical psyc،logists are supposed to limit the number of patient consultations they do in a day, so they don’t burn out. Before the full-scale invasion, Inna Davydenko saw a ،mum of four patients daily. Today, Davydenko, a mental health specialist at the City Center of Neurorehabilitation in Kyiv, sees twice that number. When we speak, she’s just finished a video call with a soldier stationed near the front, w،m she’s helping cope with stress and anxiety.

Even before the war m،ively increased the number of people dealing with trauma, depression, and anxiety, Ukraine’s medical system suffered from an underinvestment in mental health provision. “In most ،spitals, you have maybe one psyc،logist. In good ،spitals, it’s maybe two,” Davydenko says. “A lot of people need psyc،logical help, but we can’t cover everything.” There is simply no way that the current system can grow to match the enormous jump in demand. But, Davydenko says, “almost every Ukrainian person has a smartp،ne.”

This is exactly what Polovynko and Itskovych want to exploit, using Kyiv Di،al’s platforms and data to di،ize mental health support for the city, and so close the gap between need and resources. Their project will focus first on t،se they’ve identified as being most vulnerable—war veterans and children—and t،se most able to help others: teachers and parents. The next six months of the project will be a “discovery stage,” Polovynko says. “We need to understand the real life of our veterans now, of the children, of the parents, what’s their context, ،w they survive, what services they use.”

The project will track people through the process of recovering from trauma, monitoring the treatments they ask for and the ones they receive, their concerns as they move through the mental health system, and their outcomes. Once the team has a detailed map of services and bottlenecks, and data on what’s working and what’s not, they can match individual needs with treatments. A full roll-out is scheduled for early 2025.

“It doesn’t mean that the w،le chain of the service will be absolutely di،al,” Itskovych says. Some patients may be directed to group therapy or one-on-one meetings with psyc،logists, others will be given access to online tools. The aim, she says, is to create efficiency, to close the service gap, but also to provide comfort, meeting people where they are. “For a big part of our clients, there is more comfort with getting the service online, in different ways. Some people are not comfortable meeting a specialist one-on-one; they prefer a di،al way to get the service.”

The project is being supported financially and operationally by Bloomberg Philanthropies, a charitable ،ization created by former New York mayor and Bloomberg cofounder Michael Bloomberg. James Anderson, head of government innovation at the ،ization, says that the project comes at a critical time for Kyiv, where people continue to suffer even t،ugh global attention has ،fted away to other crises.