- AI is being used in the understaffed mental health care field to help providers.
- AI-based software can suggest treatments through mobile apps and analyze therapy sessions.
- This article is part of “Build IT,” a series on digital technology trends disrupting industries.
The fusion of human ingenuity and artificial intelligence offers an innovative approach to personalized mental health care. By leveraging AI technology, clinicians and behavioral health care settings can provide tailored treatments for people suffering from conditions such as depression and substance abuse. They can also use AI to evaluate the quality of their services and find ways to improve as mental health care providers.
These advances also raise important ethical and privacy considerations. As technology becomes increasingly involved in mental health care, ensuring data security, privacy, and equitable access to services must be a top priority.
How an AI-powered mobile app provides treatment
Dr Christopher Romig, director of innovation at Stella Mental Health Clinic, said he sees great potential with AI “helping with early diagnosis, personalized treatment plans and monitoring patient progress” .
There’s a reason for this expected gain in momentum, he added: “Because there is a huge shortage in this country of mental health providers, AI is going to be a key component to moving forward in terms of support and interventions. »
Click Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that develops AI-based software for medical treatments and interventions, helps patients through a mobile app. The software can work independently or in conjunction with drug therapies to treat conditions such as depression, migraines and obesity.
The company’s algorithm collects and analyzes patient data, including symptom severity and sleep-wake cycles, from the app. It uses this information to identify patterns and correlations to provide tailored treatment strategies.
Click Therapeutics’ mobile app provides a personalized overview of a user’s health journey. Click on Therapeutic
It also leverages digital biomarkers such as smartphone sensors. For example, sensors can monitor a patient’s heart rate to detect high stress; the algorithm can then recommend mindfulness exercises, relaxation techniques or cognitive behavioral therapy modules within the app. “These are real brain-altering therapies,” Shaheen Lakhan, chief medical officer of Click Therapeutics, told Business Insider.
Patients can share this information with their healthcare providers to give them a more complete understanding of their health conditions and behaviors. Measurements can inform treatment decisions and improve care outcomes. “You are the active ingredient, which means you have to be committed to it,” said Daniel Rimm, product manager.
In January, Click Therapeutics announced that the Food and Drug Administration would help speed the development of the company’s software to treat schizophrenia. Research suggests that this use case could significantly benefit from digital therapeutics.
Dr. Haig Goenjian, principal investigator and medical director of CenExel CNS, told BI that patients who used prescription digital therapies in a study focused on schizophrenia said the approach “changed their way of socializing” and “that they were better able to navigate their lives.” symptoms of schizophrenia to function in the real world. »
“At the end of our studies, many patients wondered how to continue using this digital therapy,” he added.
How an AI Platform Helps Mental Health Providers Improve Their Services
Another technology tool for mental health services is the Lyssn AI platform. It offers on-demand training modules for clients such as behavioral health providers who want to improve engagement and sessions with their patients.
Providers can record therapy sessions with their patients’ consent and use Lyssn’s AI technology to assess factors like the speech patterns and tone of both parties to better understand how to converse effectively and improve their approach sessions.
“There’s a need for more, and there’s a need for better,” said Zac Imel, Lyssn’s co-founder and chief scientific officer of psychotherapy, referring to the nationwide shortage of mental health workers. .
Michael Tanana, chief technology officer of Imel and Lyssn, said it was difficult to assess the quality of the service provided because sessions between mental health professionals and patients are private and, therefore, difficult to monitor. Lyssn aims to hold providers accountable for improving care, particularly because “the quality of mental health care is highly variable,” Imel said.
Lyssn’s dashboard displays quantified information on qualitative factors such as showing empathy toward a client during a therapy session. Lyssn
Tanana, who also co-founded Lyssn, added that “we need ways to ensure quality” as more people seek access to mental health services. Lyssn developers keep this in mind when training their AI technology to recognize problematic and successful conversation styles, Imel said.
For example, Lyssn can analyze a provider’s responses during conversations that require cultural sensitivity; this includes assessing their curiosity about the customer’s experience and whether they are anxious when talking about such topics. Based on its assessment, the platform can give providers immediate feedback on their skills and suggest certain training and tools to help them learn and improve.
Darin Carver, licensed therapist and assistant clinical director at Weber Human Services, uses Lyssn to improve patient outcomes. “Clinicians have near-immediate access to session-specific information on how to improve their clinical work,” he told BI.
He added that supervisors also have access to skill-based feedback generated from session reports, which they use to turn clinicians’ fuzzy memories into hard facts about what skills they used and need to be improved.
Carver said feedback and advanced analytics are critical treatment decisions. “We can determine what our true training needs are and which clinicians and areas need help,” he said. “It was a game changer.”
AI Mental Health Concerns
Human-driven regulation remains necessary when using AI in mental health services. AI algorithms can perpetuate biases and stereotypes from the data they are trained on.
To account for these issues, Lyssn creates a detailed annual report that evaluates the performance of its training and quality assurance models in helping people from historically marginalized communities. The company also partners with leading universities to evaluate the technology’s multicultural competence.
Strict compliance regulations are also necessary to protect patient privacy and confidentiality. Lyssn, for example, uses encrypted data transfers and storage, two-factor authentication, and regular external compliance audits to help thwart data leaks. Now that technology-driven care is evolving, Carver said, mental health professionals have a duty to use AI ethically to improve people’s health and well-being.
businessinsider
