mental health app

Consumers have more discrete digital options than ever before.

Earlier this week panelists at the World Medical Innovation Forum talked validation gaps, advantages and the future of digital mental health tools. 

At HXD 2019, a team from Kaiser Permanente described their efforts to build and populate a mental health app ecosystem for their clinicians.

Researchers found that 64 percent of mental health apps claimed efficacy, although only 14 percent included any evidence.

AbleTo will work to integrate Joyable's mental health coaching app with its virtual care offering.

A recent study published by JMIR Mental Health showed only about 10 percent of mental health patients surveyed used apps. 

The app offers 45-minute counseling sessions with trained (but unliscensed) mental health specialists for $35 per session. 

A small study published in JMIR Mental Health found that 84 percent of surveyed patients living with mental illness were willing to use apps that would collect and share biomarkers.

San Francisco-based Lantern — a web and mobile platform offering cognitive behavioral therapy and mental health coaching to consumers, employers, and payers — will be laying off the majority of its staff as the company moves to taper its current commercial arrangements, CEO and cofounder Alejandro Foung told MobiHealthNews.

While the use of mental health apps has been on the rise, researchers of a recent analysis published by the Annals of Family Medicine, which is broadly critical of these platforms, worry that these apps could lead to unnecessary diagnoses and misinformation about mental illness.