Focus on clinically-led features, including new AI smart notes to assist providers
Talkspace (NASDAQ: TALK), a leading online behavioral health care company, today announced the formation of the dedicated AI Innovation Group aimed at advancing provider efficiency, and enhancing clinical quality and overall operational excellence through responsible and ethical use of artificial intelligence. Created in partnership with Talkspace’s Clinical Quality and Security and Compliance teams, this initiative marks the next iteration of Talkspace’s maturing AI program, and a significant milestone in its commitment to being an innovative, high-performing provider organization.
The “smart notes” feature is the first feature to launch from this group. Developed at the request of providers and refined with extensive testing and feedback, smart notes empower providers to generate summary notes of member sessions, securely speeding up documentation time and seamlessly integrating clinical insights with each client’s unique treatment plan. Each smart note saves providers an average of 10 minutes per session — approximately three to four hours per week in administrative tasks at full-time utilization. Early reviews by providers indicate a 97% positive response.
“We are excited to formalize our AI efforts as part of Talkspace’s ongoing commitments to providing high-quality care and improving the overall provider experience on our platform,” said Jon Cohen, M.D., CEO of Talkspace. “By integrating AI tools into our platform, we aim to shorten the time our providers spend on administrative tasks and equip them with tools that support their clinical decision-making, while maintaining the integrity of the human-centered therapeutic experience that so powerfully benefits our members.”
Talkspace’s AI team will be led by Michael Rodio, General Manager of AI, who led Talkspace’s core data science team for 2 years, and Katie McCrudden, AI Project Manager, in partnership with Nikole Benders-Hadi, M.D., Chief Medical Officer at Talkspace; Mary Potter, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Privacy Officer, and Chief Information Security Officer; and Gil Margolin, Chief Technology Officer. Future AI initiatives will focus on three key areas:
- Provider Assistance: Help providers focus on what they do best — deliver care to clients — by simplifying and expediting providers’ administrative tasks, such as session documentation.
- Clinical Quality: Drive clinical innovation at scale by enhancing providers’ clinical decision-making and patient engagement, and alerting providers to clinical risks in a timely way. Through research and partnerships, we continue to define best practices in tech-enabled delivery of mental health care, and to raise the standard of clinical excellence for our members and providers.
- General Operational Excellence: Leverage new technologies to improve productivity and quality of work within the organization as a whole, further optimizing the flywheel of therapist supply.
“At Talkspace, we are committed to integrating AI in ways that enhance the therapeutic experience while upholding the highest standards of clinical care and ethical responsibility,” said Nikole Benders-Hadi, M.D., Chief Medical Officer at Talkspace. “By leveraging AI and developing tools that are clinically led and ethical by design, we can continue to advance the accessibility, delivery and quality of digital mental health care.”
Talkspace is committed to ensuring that AI is designed responsibly and ethically. The company’s AI practices are informed by guidelines from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST). A Governance Committee composed of stakeholders in Talkspace’s clinical network (currently 50% of the committee), legal and regulatory compliance and product engineering departments, and industry experts will oversee the ethical implementation of AI. This announcement follows the announcement of Talkspace’s AI suicide risk alert system, which, since launch in 2019, has flagged 32,000 members whose messages to their therapists indicated signs of suicidality or risk of self-harm (as of late 2023).
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