Discovery Launches AI Platform to Cut Relapse Rates in Year After Treatment
Discovery Behavioral Health, which operates a network of 165 mental health, substance use, and eating disorder treatment centers, has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that the company hopes will reduce relapse rates among not only its own patients, but potentially the clients of other providers across the industry as well.
The year following treatment has been identified as a period of particular vulnerability for behavioral healthcare patients, with past research showing relapse rates of up to 85%.
To address this challenge, Discovery has developed an AI platform, known as Discovery365, that tracks patient progress for 12 months after discharge from a behavioral healthcare treatment program. The platform analyzes video of provider-patient interactions using 16 data collection points. It also delivers automated prompts, either through text or email, for patients to complete asynchronous digital check-in. Patients can then respond by smartphone or computer, answering 3-4 questions per check-in.
The Discovery365 platform uses an algorithm of weighted metrics developed by Discovery, and is administered and analyzed by Utah-based tech firm Videra Health. Using Videra’s AI technology, the platform assesses patients’ verbal and non-verbal behavior, including language, vocal inflections, rate of speech, body, and facial movements, to identify signs of struggle, relapse, emotional distress, or potential for high-risk behaviors.
Findings from Discovery365 are validated and optimized by psychiatrists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an academic medical center in Boston, Massachusetts.
Discovery CEO John Peloquin tells Behavioral Healthcare Executive that the organization has received positive feedback from patients using Discovery365 since its launch.
“Over the course of the past year, we have received and responded to more than 4000 alerts triggered by patients and family members in need of help after discharge,” Peloquin said. “This has given us the opportunity to divert emergency room visits and readmissions to higher levels of care. These alerts can range from a request for a therapist or a 12-Step sponsor to a patient who is struggling and in need of an intervention.
“We also see alerts from people who report needing to readmit and, in some cases, people who need to readmit but don’t report it—that’s when the AI feature is a great benefit.”
After a soft launch of Discovery365 in 2022, Peloquin said Discovery received 16 alerts from the platform. In 6 cases, patients had verbalized a need for readmission. In the other 10, the AI platform identified a potential need even though it was not explicitly verbalized by the patient.
“We can now look deeper into these cases and gather all of the post-discharge data to understand what may have preceded the need to readmit,” Peloquin said.
Industry Implications
Discovery plans to publish its first report on its use of Discovery365 in the second quarter of 2024, with data compiled by Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The report will have information on changes in depression, improvement in recovery, compliance with treatment plans, social determinants of health, and other factors that impact patients’ recovery.
“When we can isolate those success variables, we can start to learn how to help patients maintain the gains made during treatment,” Peloquin said. “For example, some of our early data shows that substance use patients tend to fall out of compliance with their medication management in month 1, but our mental health and eating disorder patients do not. Similarly, we see eating disorder patients struggling in month 3.
“As we look deeper into these trends, we can create best practices for patients during and after treatment that will help all providers. We hope that Discovery365 will benefit patients far beyond the doors of Discovery by creating the highest standards of care possible for the industry.”
To that end, Peloquin said that beyond sharing data, the company is open to the idea of licensing of Discovery365 for use by other provider organizations.
“We are discussing the possibility of making this available to the entire industry so all patients have a fighting chance,” he said. “We want to work with Videra and our partners at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to create best practices for the industry. We want to make relapse the exception and not the rule of recovery.”
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