Episode Description
In this episode of Neural Compass, host Mark Jacobstein sits down with Dr. Stephanie Eken — chief medical officer at Acadia Healthcare, which operates 250 behavioral health facilities across the country — for a conversation about what it actually takes to deliver evidence-based care at scale. Spoiler: it's harder than the research suggests, and the research already suggests it's very hard.
Stephanie came to psychiatry through a single rotation in medical school, a child with sudden-onset OCD, and a fact she hadn't encountered before: the OCD had been caused by strep throat. That case sent her down a path that eventually led to running clinical quality across one of the largest behavioral health networks in the country.
New episodes every two weeks. This one is for anyone who has ever tried to navigate the mental health system and wondered why it feels like it wasn't designed to be entered.
This episode covers:
- How strep throat can trigger sudden-onset OCD in children — and the case that sent her into psychiatry
- Why the patients in clinical trials almost never look like the patients in real life
- The navigator problem: why even physicians can't find their way into behavioral health care
- What AI-assisted ambient listening could do for therapy supervision — and why culture determines whether it works
- Why behavioral health still lacks what stroke care has had for decades: a defined pathway from crisis to recovery
About the Speakers
Stephanie Eken, Guest
is chief medical officer at Acadia Healthcare, where she oversees clinical quality across 250 facilities. She trained as a pediatric specialist in OCD and eating disorders after a medical school rotation showed her that strep throat could cause acute-onset OCD in a child — and that most people, including most clinicians, had no idea.
Her focus has always been getting children back on their developmental trajectory before adolescence makes things harder. At scale, that means building the pathway that behavioral health still mostly lacks: a defined sequence from crisis to recovery, the way stroke care has one.
Mark Jacobstein is the co-founder and president of Jimini Health. A longtime entrepreneur at the intersection of AI and health tech, he now leads Jimini’s mission to transform mental and behavioral health through clinically grounded, AI-powered care.
For healthcare executives, researchers, investors, and anyone who thinks the mental health crisis deserves serious answers — this is the show.