Transforming Mental Health Services With AI Solutions

Southern California — Therapy and mental health services have seen significant change over the last few decades, and therapists now have a variety of different methods in their treatment plans. However, with more nuanced approaches comes new challenges. As there is both an increase in the general knowledge needed to practice and more raw data being captured from regular note taking and case reports, this has resulted in an exponential amount of work that takes place behind the scenes.

With AI becoming increasingly integrated into various industries, mental health services are no exception. For many end-users, achieving optimal results from AI requires several different systems and data storage working in tandem. This complexity presents an opportunity for solution providers to step in and help clients realize AI's potential.

One such provider is Data41, who is developing custom AI solutions to enhance patient outcomes for therapists. McKinley, a mental health services organization based in Southern California that was founded more than a century ago, has begun to see positive results among their staff.

A Century-Old Mission

While one of McKinley’s primary focuses is mental health services for children and adults in need, they were originally founded as a place for children to live when their parents were unable to care for them. Anil Vadaparty, president & CEO of McKinley Children's Center, shares, “We've been growing, it's exciting, but the purpose of McKinley really is to work with communities, work with individuals and families to help put them on a path towards healing." In the present, their work with children who have experienced significant trauma, and the entire family unit has helped many.

This impact is felt by individuals like Andi, who transitioned through nine different foster homes since she was seven. Andi shared, "It was very hard for me growing up because I didn't have a support system. Working with the [McKinley] therapist was really important for me … because it changed me as a person and brought me hope every single day. They really need everything they can because they are really great and changing one life at a time."

The Administrative Burden

While the work therapists do is life-changing, mental health counselors and therapists at McKinley face a common challenge: excessive administrative work. Dustin Vander Haar, McKinley’s SVP of Services, highlights the issue, "They're working in high trauma environments. Regularly they may come to the office expecting to have a very defined caseload and then something comes up and they're reacting. And when they're pulled out of their schedule, they're adjusting, and then on top of that, they're really having to do all of this admin work.”

This constant change and adaptation can put an enormous amount of stress on clinicians, leading to burnout. Vadaparty adds, "I think all of us can think of a teacher that we had in the past that was particularly impactful for us. And if you think about why that person was so impactful in your life, they gave you what was most precious to them, which is time. No one ever looks back at that person and says, well, they were really good at paperwork. It's the time that they gave you."

The Role of AI

The potential of AI to alleviate administrative burdens and improve care quality is promising. However, McKinley faces specific challenges that prevent them from using public AI models. Their client data is sensitive, requiring secure and compliant storage solutions. Additionally, McKinley needs various AI technologies to work together seamlessly for any solution to be effective and consistent.

Enter Data41, a VAR with extensive data analytics expertise, ready to tackle these challenges. Hans Mize, Data41’s president, first worked with McKinley 10 years ago on an advanced analytics project, an early collaboration between the two that looked for ways to deliver better outcomes through technology. Hans knew that developing a customized GenAI solution for McKinley would be challenging.

”There's a lot that goes into a Gen AI type of project. The prompt engineering that goes into making a Gen AI solution work for an organization is where the magic happens. What is compiled in these documents? How many documents on average are put together in electronic health records? What is an extreme case? What is a minimal case? Then we could go in and focus on key aspects of those forms.” For the solution to work, Data41 knew that the results needed to be accurate for clinicians to have trust in it.

Specialized Training and Support

Specialized training was necessary to meet these challenges, and their distributor, Ingram Micro, played a crucial role. Mize explains, "You want to be able to ensure that the quality of solution and product that you're providing your clients is going to match their expectation. Especially with McKinley, the outcomes are very important.”

Due to this level of importance, Data41 hired their first senior AI engineer. “His first day on the job happened to be at an Ingram Micro Workshop for GenAI certification, level three certification. He spent an entire week in Chicago, day one traveling out there, and then four days on the ground, getting his certs on that particular technology.” With a global network of resources and other vendors, Ingram Micro was able to train Data41 with real use cases, quickly bringing them up to speed.

While it's still early days for the technology, the results are promising. Vander Haar says, "A clinician that's burnt out, a clinician that's tired, a client picks up on that immediately in session. And to have clinicians that are energized because they don't feel like, ‘I'm going to have to do all this documentation later’, they're really able to attend in those sessions and it improves our outcomes, it improves client satisfaction, and ultimately it's helping improve our ability to maintain our clinicians, so we don't lose them to other areas of the field."

With the basics in place, Hans looks to the future. "To push the envelope a little bit, and we're not quite there yet, is that once you get that first phase built in, then they have a treatment plan that they want to have developed from that. And that's the next step."

A Simple Goal

At the end of the day, McKinley's goal in using AI is straightforward: give therapists more time to spend with their patients, ensuring that time is of high quality. Vadaparty shared this analogy: "Salespeople only spent about 35 percent of their time doing sales and the rest of the time is just doing paperwork. I relate to that. How much my day is spent doing emails instead of the actual work. Well, in the case of McKinley therapists, that work has a tremendous impact."

As AI continues to evolve, its positive impact on mental health services at McKinley is becoming increasingly evident, offering hope for a future where technology and human care work hand in hand to improve lives.