A shortage of mental healthcare providers has led medical technology companies to use artificial intelligence (AI) to make patient care more accessible.
After a two-year decline, suicide rates in the U.S. spiked again in 2021, according to a CDC report, making mental health care a pressing issue.
- Over 160 million Americans currently live in "mental health professional shortage areas."
- By 2024, there is expected to be a shortage of up to 31,091 psychiatrists.
- Boston-based OM1 has built PHenOM, an AI-based platform that pulls data from over 9,000 clinicians in 2,500 locations across the U.S. to track trends in depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies, and other mental health disorders.
- The platform's sophisticated medical language models can predict who is at risk of suicide and direct care to them.
- AI models are built on both good information and misinformation and are not without risks.
- In the future, models such as ChatGPT could serve as an "off-hours" resource for those who need help in the middle of the night or on weekends when they can’t see a doctor.
