SelfEcho Launches Pilot Study Of New Mental Healthcare Mobile Platform Designed To Enhance Patient Treatment And Practice Management

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Oct. 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time, mental health clinicians have the opportunity to preview a new mobile platform that provides them with patient data between therapy visits to accelerate diagnoses and improve care.  SelfEcho, a leading developer of technology solutions for mental health, is launching and enrolling clinicians in a pilot study of its new Mobile Therapy system.  Mobile Therapy collects patient data on an ongoing, voluntary basis that clinicians can access through a centralized dashboard to monitor progress and enhance treatment.  The system also offers practice management tools for clinicians. 

SelfEcho is enrolling selected, licensed clinicians from various mental health practice areas in the pilot study, including professional counselors, clinical psychologists, clinical social workers and marriage and family therapists.  The pilot studies will be conducted in two groups of clinicians who will utilize the system within their practices, free of charge.  Licensed mental health clinicians treating adult patients are eligible to participate and can find enrollment information at http://pilot.mobiletherapy.com.

"Mobile technology has incredible potential to transform mental health care treatment and we're excited to be at the forefront of bringing new applications to professionals," commented Jacques Habra, SelfEcho's co-founder and CEO. "Our goal in launching the pilot study is to give clinicians a preview of the Mobile Therapy system and to solicit their input to ensure that we're meeting the needs of their practices."

SelfEcho's Mobile Therapy is designed to empower clinicians through mobile technology by collecting patient data in a scientifically validated manner, which is then analyzed by psychology-based algorithms.  Clinicians invite patients to utilize the system and then customize each user's account based on the patient's condition and treatment plan.  In full compliance with HIPAA requirements, Mobile Therapy collects data actively and passively via patient self-reports and smartphone sensors.  Mobile Therapy uses passive linguistic analysis technology, based on 20 years of research stemming from Professor James W. Pennebaker's work at the University of Texas at Austin.

Over time, clinicians can view metrics from Mobile Therapy's centralized dashboard that enables them to more efficiently diagnose, track patient progress, identify triggers and make more informed decisions about treatment planning.  The dashboard also provides clinicians with HIPAA-compliant note-taking tools and will soon offer variety of insurance, scheduling and billing features to streamline and centralize practice management.

According to a recent national survey commissioned earlier this year by SelfEcho, mental health practitioners believe mobile technology applications geared to mental healthcare treatment have the ability to improve patient care and practice management.  More than half of survey respondents (66 percent) believe that being able to obtain additional data on clients using mobile technology would improve their ability to treat them.  Furthermore, 68 percent of clinicians surveyed felt that integrating additional data from apps for mental health tracking into therapy practices would help clinicians advance their profession. 

"Many patients do not provide reliable or consistent information to their mental health professionals about their emotional well-being during the time between appointments," said Dr. Daniel Gilbert, a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and a senior research director at SelfEcho.  "Mobile technology systems like Mobile Therapy give clinicians a powerful tool to better understand what is happening in their clients' lives so they can work together to tailor treatment to patients' needs."

About SelfEcho

Based in Santa Barbara, Calif., SelfEcho www.selfecho.com applies technology in creative ways to enhance well-being, mental health and productivity.  SelfEcho's suite of products includes Mobile Therapy, a web-based platform designed to empower clinicians to provide better patient care and UpJoy.org, a web-based corporate wellness application designed to improve employee positivity and productivity.  Its founders and employees are committed to the bridging the gap between clinical experts within the field of psychology and the business sphere.  SelfEcho's management team includes accomplished experts in psychology and award-winning entrepreneurs.  SelfEcho is a project incubated and funded through the Santa Barbara start-up incubator, Noospheric.

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SOURCE SelfEcho