Improving Mental Health Outcomes at Scale through Technology-Enabled Measurement-Based Care-View Presentation Slides

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This 2025 American Psychiatric Association webinar, presented by Dr. Andrew D. Carlo and Dr. Carlene MacMillan, focuses on improving mental health outcomes at scale through technology-enabled Measurement-Based Care (MBC). MBC involves the repeated, timely use of validated patient-reported measures to inform clinical decisions in psychiatry, enhancing symptom tracking, patient engagement, treatment guidance, and outcomes. The session clarifies MBC principles, including four key steps: measure administration, joint response review, shared decision-making, and documentation of treatment plan changes.<br /><br />Despite MBC’s benefits, implementation faces barriers at multiple levels: patient concerns (privacy), clinician skepticism, organizational resource limitations, and system-level challenges such as competing priorities. Facilitators to adoption include the use of feedback systems, leadership training, expert consultation, incentives, and learning collaboratives.<br /><br />Emerging technologies advancing MBC include digital assessment tools (smartphone apps and web portals), computerized adaptive testing (which dynamically tailors questionnaires), wearables and passive monitoring (e.g., actigraphy, heart rate variability tracking, digital phenotyping), and artificial intelligence (AI) to support risk stratification, early detection, and precision psychiatry. For instance, AI models can aid treatment selection or detect mood fluctuations. However, ethical and practical issues arise around data privacy, equity of access and algorithmic bias, need for clinician oversight, patient autonomy, cost concerns, and interoperability.<br /><br />A case example illustrates a bipolar patient using wearable and app-based monitors whose declining sleep and activity flagged a mixed mood state, allowing early intervention that prevented hospitalization. Looking ahead, integrating digital measures into electronic health records, standardizing digital biomarkers, clarifying regulations, and including AI-driven metrics in value-based care models are future priorities. The goal is a tech-enhanced, measurement-driven, and equitable psychiatric care system.  <br /><br />Continuing education credits and upcoming APA online courses related to psychiatry and AI applications are also highlighted.

Keywords

Measurement-Based Care

Mental Health Technology

Patient-Reported Measures

Psychiatric Treatment

Digital Assessment Tools

Artificial Intelligence in Psychiatry

Wearable Health Monitors

Clinical Decision Support

Data Privacy in Healthcare

Precision Psychiatry