Reimagining the Clinician + AI Partnership

AI in behavioral health

As someone who has spent years in the trenches of behavioral health leadership, I’ve watched our field wrestle with an increasingly complex challenge: how do we provide the personalized, comprehensive care our patients deserve when our time and resources are stretched impossibly thin?

The average behavioral health clinician today is carrying an impossible workload. Between crafting individualized treatment plans, documenting patient interactions, monitoring medication adherence, tracking patient progress, and managing administrative requirements, we’re asked to be part clinician, part data analyst, part administrative coordinator, and part mind reader.

The Human at the Center, with AI as a Collaborative Partner

AI is not a magic solution. What I’m proposing is something more nuanced: AI as a collaborative partner that augments our clinical expertise rather than attempting to replace it.

Imagine an AI assistant that doesn’t just crunch numbers, but actually understands the intricate landscape of behavioral health. A tool that could:

  • Analyze treatment histories of similar patients to help inform personalized care strategies
  • Automatically draft comprehensive, accurate clinical notes that capture the nuance of each patient interaction
  • Proactively flag potential medication interactions or side effects based on real-time patient data
  • Help track patient progress between appointments, identifying early warning signs that might otherwise go unnoticed

This is about giving clinicians superpowers – the ability to see patterns, anticipate needs, and spend more quality time doing what we entered this field to do: truly connect with and help their patients.

The Workflow Revolution Goes From Administrative Burden to Clinical Insight

How many hours do we lose each week to paperwork that takes us away from patient care? Current estimates suggest clinicians spend nearly 50% of their time on documentation and administrative tasks.

An AI partnership could fundamentally transform that equation. By automating documentation, providing predictive insights, and streamlining patient monitoring, we could reclaim those hours and redirect them toward meaningful clinical interactions.

Building Trust is The Critical Human Element

What I can hear from many clinicians – “Another tech solution that doesn’t understand the complexity of what we do.” And you’re right to be skeptical. The most successful AI tools won’t be developed in a tech bubble, but through deep collaboration with clinical professionals who understand the intricate dance of patient care. I co-founded Videra in part for this reason specifically – so I can help be that clinical voice in the room as we develop tools to help other clinicians.

This means AI development must be:

  • Transparent about capabilities and limitations
  • Rigorously tested in real-world clinical environments
  • Designed with robust privacy and ethical considerations
  • Continuously refined through clinician feedback

An Invitation to Collaborate

Technology isn’t replacing human connection. Technology enhances our capacity for connection. As someone who has led clinics and understands the daily challenges clinicians face, I see immense potential in a thoughtful, collaborative approach to AI integration.

For my fellow clinicians, what are your hopes? Your concerns? Your vision for how technology can support the incredible work we do?

The future of behavioral health isn’t about choosing between human expertise and technological innovation. It’s about creating a partnership that amplifies our most fundamental goal: providing compassionate, personalized care that truly helps our patients thrive.

What are your thoughts? Join me on LinkedIn to discuss.

Check our blog for the latest discussions on AI n healthcare, behavioral health, and pharma.

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Introducing Videra Sidekick Notes’s New Group Notes Feature

Videra Health

I’m thrilled to announce the release of our newest innovation in clinical documentation: Group Notes capability within our Sidekick Notes product. This groundbreaking feature addresses one of the most significant pain points in behavioral health – the time-consuming and complex process of documenting group therapy sessions.

The Challenge of Group Documentation

Throughout my conversations with clinicians across the country, one consistent theme emerges: group session documentation is uniquely challenging. Tracking multiple participants, capturing individual contributions, and creating comprehensive yet individualized notes has historically been a manual, time-intensive process that pulls providers away from what matters most – patient care.

Group therapy is a vital treatment modality, but its unique documentation requirements have often overburden clinicians causing inconsistent quality and accuracy. Until now.

Revolutionary AI-Powered Group Notes

Videra’s Sidekick Notes now includes the industry’s first-of-its-kind AI-powered group therapy documentation solution. This exclusive capability automatically:

  • Identifies individual speakers using our proprietary Speaker Map technology
  • Generates comprehensive session summaries that capture the overall group dynamic
  • Creates individualized sections for each participant
  • Provides speaker identification assistance for participants it cannot automatically recognize

What makes this particularly exciting is that we’ve designed the system to work alongside clinicians rather than replace their judgment. When our AI identifies a speaker with high confidence, it will label them accordingly with a visual indicator showing it was AI-assisted. For speakers it cannot identify with certainty, Sidekick presents the provider with small audio clips to confirm identification, ensuring accuracy while saving substantial time.

Beyond Just Group Notes

While Group Notes is the highlight of this release, Sidekick Notes continues to offer comprehensive documentation support for individual sessions across multiple note formats:

  • SOAP notes
  • DAP notes
  • GIRP notes

All with customizable tone settings (progress notes or medical necessity) and seamless integration with your existing workflows through several deployment methods, including browser-window based, browser-extension based, or Zoom integration.

The Impact on Provider Well-being

We built Sidekick because we believe documentation should support clinical care, not detract from it. By automating the most time-consuming aspects of this process – particularly for group sessions – we’re giving clinicians back valuable time to focus on patient care or personal well-being, saving 60-70% of their documentation time.

One early adopter of Group Notes told us: “I used to spend my evenings catching up on group documentation. With Sidekick Group Notes, I’m finishing my notes before I leave the office.”

Looking Forward

This release represents a significant milestone in our journey to transform behavioral healthcare technology. Our Speaker Map technology provides a first-of-its-kind ability to automatically identify each user based on their voice alone. Not more manually noting an entire session. Speaker Map does it for you.

In the coming months, we’ll continue enhancing our group documentation capabilities while expanding our Sidekick suite to include more tools that empower clinicians and improve patient care.

I invite you to experience Sidekick Notes and the new Group Notes feature firsthand. If you want to see Group Notes in action, make an appointment here for a demonstration, and join us in our mission to give clinicians more time for what matters most – helping people live healthier lives.

Together, we’re making the future of behavioral healthcare more human.

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The Transformational Role of AI-human Collaboration

In an age where some systems are still transforming from paper records and assessments, the meteoric rise in tools using Artificial Intelligence risks having some providers left behind.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  For the past few years Videra Health has focused on helping mental health providers transform their business and use technology and AI to generate better results for their patients and bottom line.  The capability of the technology is changing so rapidly it may be out of date between when I post it and when you read it, but as of now I want to share some of the core opportunities I see for how AI can help us drive our much needed revolution in mental health.  As we continue to understand the human mind better, AI can play an indispensable role in not only screening for, diagnosing mental health issues but also recommending effective treatment methods and even predicting future occurrences .

In this blog, we explore how AI will reshape the future of mental health care, specifically discussing how we can measure mental health more accurately, provide automated advice to clinicians, continually improve AI, and reduce inherent human bias. It will also delve into the concept of AI-human collaboration to achieve optimal results.

Enhanced Measurement of Mental Health Using AI

Assessing mental health has always been challenging due to its subjective nature, making it difficult to measure accurately. AI, however, provides a potential solution to this conundrum. Through the application of machine learning algorithms, AI can analyze a vast array of data, including language patterns, behavior changes, social media usage, and even biometric data. This holistic view enables AI to identify subtle patterns and correlations that might be missed by human practitioners, potentially leading to earlier detection and more accurate diagnosis of mental health conditions.

Automated Advice to Clinicians for Improved Care

AI also offers promise in augmenting the capabilities of mental health clinicians. By leveraging vast amounts of data, AI can generate insights about treatment efficacy based on a myriad of factors such as demographics, specific symptoms, and past treatment responses. For example, AI could help determine which interventions work best for patients with specific comorbid conditions, or which medications are least likely to result in unwanted side effects for a particular patient.

Moreover, AI can be used to monitor patient progress in real-time, providing ongoing feedback to clinicians and enabling them to adjust treatment strategies as needed. This could lead to more personalized, dynamic care plans that adapt to the changing needs of each patient.

AI’s Continuous Improvement and Bias Reduction

One of the unique aspects of AI is its capacity for continuous learning and improvement. As more data becomes available and as algorithms are refined, AI’s accuracy and predictive capabilities are expected to improve. Over time, this will make AI an increasingly powerful tool for mental health care.

Furthermore, AI can help reduce bias in mental health treatment. While human clinicians can be influenced by a range of factors such as their own experiences, prejudices, or the limited number of cases they have been exposed to, AI can offer a more objective view. By analyzing a vast number of cases and variables, AI can provide a more balanced and data-driven perspective, thereby mitigating the risks of human bias.

The Power of AI and Human Collaboration

While AI holds great promise, it’s essential to remember that AI is a tool, not a replacement for human clinicians. The future of mental health care should not be a choice between AI and human clinicians but rather a harmonious integration of the two.

AI can manage and analyze vast amounts of data, identify patterns, and generate insights far beyond human capabilities. However, human clinicians bring critical components to the table that AI currently can’t replicate – the ability to empathize, to understand context beyond data, and to provide the human touch that is so integral to mental health care.

By combining the strengths of AI and human clinicians, we can create a synergistic partnership that brings the best of both worlds to the table. This approach has the potential to deliver more accurate diagnoses, more personalized treatment plans, and ultimately, better outcomes for patients.

The future of mental health care is undoubtedly exciting. As AI continues to evolve and integrate with human clinicians, we can expect a significant shift towards more proactive, personalized, and effective mental health care. However, it will be important to navigate this journey with caution, ensuring ethical use of AI and preserving the inherent human aspect of mental health care.

Videra Health Uses AI-assisted Video Assessments to Help Signature Healthcare Services Improve Long-term Outcomes for Behavioral Health Patients

Videra Health

Digital health software platform, Videra Health, announced today a partnership with California-based behavioral health system Signature Healthcare Services, to improve patient post-discharge follow-up using AI-assisted video assessments.

“Videra’s technology has already identified patients who need help and alerted our team to immediately follow-up with these patients. These crucial interventions would never have happened without the insight and automation of the Videra technology.”

The partnership combines cutting-edge technology with a trusted, well established behavioral health system. Signature Healthcare Services’ 19 acute care facilities offer a full spectrum of programs including acute inpatient care for children, adolescents, adults, geriatric, and residential patients, partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient programs.

When patients leave treatment, they are especially vulnerable. Videra Health’s technology utilizes video and voice analytics to predict when a patient is in distress and may need support or intervention. The technology allows Signature Healthcare to automatically check-in with at-risk patients at regular intervals and drive adherence to required post-discharge follow-up milestones for each patient. Not only will more patients be helped who otherwise wouldn’t have been identified, but these rich, automated touchpoints will allow Signature to keep patients connected to the same facility and providers that originally provided their vital treatment.

“With a national shortage in providers and a dramatic increase in the need for behavioral health treatment, we’re thrilled to help Signature bring an innovative approach to caring for patients after their discharge,” said Mike Henneman, VP of Revenue and Strategic Partnerships at Videra Health.

The two companies have already begun implementing the automated video post-discharge programs at one of Signature’s flagship facilities, Houston Behavioral Healthcare Hospital. They’ve seen notable preliminary success in a short period of time, and are exploring the possibility of expanding the service to the remaining 18 Signature Healthcare locations.

“Staffing shortages and the dramatic need for mental health care during the pandemic made it critical to utilize technology to improve follow-up care, achieve better outcomes, and meet our vitally important quality metrics,” said Jean Scallon, Regional VP at Signature Healthcare Services. “Videra’s technology has already identified patients who need help and alerted our team to immediately follow-up with these patients. These crucial interventions would never have happened without the insight and automation of the Videra technology.”

About Signature Healthcare

Headquartered in Southern California, Signature Healthcare Services, LLC is one of the largest privately-held behavioral health hospital companies in the U.S. Signature delivers mental health and substance abuse treatment through 19 acute care hospitals located in several states across the country. All facilities are accredited by CMS and The Joint Commission, and the organization is committed to providing excellence in quality patient care. Amongst the many hospitals inside the Signature umbrella, the organization also operates a large number of its facilities under the Aurora Behavioral Health brand.

About Videra Health

Videra Health is an automated, AI-assisted, video assessment platform that empowers providers and health care organizations to identify, triage, and provide care to patients who are most acute. The FDA-registered digital platform connects providers and patients anytime, anywhere between visits and post-discharge via written and video assessments that translate into actionable quantitative and qualitative patient data. Based in Utah, the company is led by internationally recognized healthcare and video-analytic experts, and is backed by investors such as Peterson Ventures, Rose Park Advisors, OATV and Jeremy Andrus.