Spring Health Convenes AI in Mental Health Safety & Ethics Council to Set Industry Standards for Responsible AI

NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, a coalition of leaders from academia, healthcare, technology, and employee benefits announced the formation of the AI in Mental Health Safety & Ethics Council, with support from Spring Health. The Council will advance the development of universal standards for the safe, ethical, and effective use of artificial intelligence (AI) in mental health care.

While AI has enormous potential to address longstanding challenges in mental health, today, millions of people are using unvalidated AI tools to address their mental health needs. As AI advances outpace regulation, the Council's deep expertise will inform the development of VERA-MH (Validation of Ethical and Responsible AI in Mental Health), the industry's first open-sourced and automated evaluation framework to ensure AI mental health tools meet rigorous standards of clinical safety and efficacy.

Founding Council Members

The Council's members bring deep expertise from both the private and public sector spanning psychiatry, data science, ethics, technology, healthcare operations, and employee well-being: 

• Dr. Nina Vasan, MD, MBA, Author and leading voice at the intersection of clinical mental healthcare and AI; Founder & Director of Brainstorm: The Stanford Lab for Mental Health Innovation
• Dr. Tim Hahn, PhD, Heisenberg Professor of Machine Learning & Predictive Analytics in Psychiatry at the Institute of Translational Psychiatry, University of Münster
• Dr. Nicholas C. Jacobson, PhD, Associate Professor of Biomedical Data Science, Psychiatry, and Computer Science, Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College and creator of Therabot
• Dr. John Krystal, MD, Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Professor of Translational Research; Professor of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Psychology, Yale School of Medicine
• Dr. Nils Opel, MD, Professor of Affective Disorders and Deputy Director at the Department of Psychiatry & Neuroscience, Charité – Berlin University Hospital
• Dr. Julian De Freitas, PhD, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; Director, Ethical Intelligence Lab
• Fred Thiele, Vice President of Global Benefits & Mobility, Microsoft
• Lilly Wyttenbach, Managing Director, Head of Global Wellness, JPMorgan Chase
• Dr. Don Mordecai, MD, National Leader for Mental Health and Addiction Care, Kaiser Permanente
• Hans Hage, Chief Product Officer Consumer, UnitedHealthcare
• Dr. Doug Nemeck, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Behavioral Health, Evernorth Health Services

A New Standard for AI in Mental Health

Individuals, providers, payers, employers, and policymakers are navigating a rapidly expanding landscape of AI-powered solutions without a shared framework to assess safety, ethics, and clinical validity. The Council brings together leading voices across sectors to build a unified foundation the entire ecosystem can rely on to guide the responsible use of AI in mental health care.

"AI in mental health has incredible promise, but ensuring tools are safe, trustworthy, and clinically validated is urgent," said Dr. Mill Brown, Spring Health Chief Medical Officer. "By bringing together unique perspectives from mental health and technology, this group is establishing the guardrails the industry needs now."

Council members also noted that the initiative addresses a critical gap in oversight. Dr. Nina Vasan explained. "AI is rapidly becoming central to mental health care, but it cannot be a free-for-all. This Council is creating the guardrails to protect patients while ensuring innovation moves forward responsibly."

The Council will meet regularly to refine and launch VERA-MH, which will be developed in the open, open-sourced for community use to provide clear clinical safety metrics, and automated to keep pace with rapid AI innovation.

For more information on the AI in Mental Health Safety & Ethics Council and VERA-MH visit www.springhealth.com/news or contact [email protected].

SOURCE Spring Health