Why We Created the First AI-based Behavioral Healthcare System
Our modern lifestyle is a great strain on our emotional well-being. Technology has made it easier to connect to many people at once, but harder to connect in meaningful ways. The former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, recently spoke about the loneliness epidemic in our society. In his manifesto, he challenges us to take action and invest in the emotional strength of our communities.
Emotional and mental health have a trillion dollar impact on our society. And there are many faces of emotional health — for most people, symptoms are related to common life events — navigating a breakup, losing a family member, shouldering the stresses of work, having a newborn or dealing with a chronic condition. Yet, we often don’t prioritize our emotional health and in many cases dismiss its importance. But it’s important to talk about it.
Behavioral health is perhaps the last bastion of poor user experience in our lives. The traditional, fee-for-service model is stigmatizing and getting help is intimidating for most people. Tracking outcomes is not a priority, the industry is slow-moving and resistant to change, and collaborative, team-based care is rare. The behavioral health system operates on a 9–5 schedule and was designed decades ago.
We believe that machine learning and AI technologies can help deliver better emotional support, in a more convenient manner, to millions of people. So we built it.
Today, Ginger.io combines a nationwide medical group practice, combining collaborative care with a proprietary technology and AI platform that has been refined over the last half-decade. For this to work, clinicians and AI need to be seamlessly integrated, built together from the ground up. And that’s why we had to become the first AI-based behavioral healthcare system.
As a Ginger.io user, you are supported by a dedicated care team of coaches, licensed therapists and board-certified psychiatrists. Support is is available anytime, across the country. Ginger.io coaches respond in under a minute, and are available around-the-clock support — even on weekends and holidays.
We use evidence based approaches that are well understood in behavioral health with decades of research. Our coaches, licensed therapists and board-certified psychiatrists operate in a collaborative care model — and yes, we have been able to make it work at scale. Our self-care tools are personalized for you, and based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness and resilience training. We partnered with 40 health systems and academic research partners to fine-tune our technology.
But we also had to look at the world with fresh eyes and go back to first principles, to create a new kind of emotional support. One with you in the center. By using AI and machine learning, we can shine a light where it was dark before.
Technology empowers our team to identify your symptoms, direct you to the right type of care, personalize your experience, and track your progress and success. Information flows seamlessly flows between the people helping you and the AI-powered technology, making it a better experience for you.
For example, by understanding symptoms better, we’re able to match you with the coach that best fits both your needs and your personality. By tracking progress, we’re able to provide the right type of support and refer you to clinical therapy and psychiatry, even before you request it. By understanding how you engage with self-care content, we’re able to send you supporting guides that work better, for you. We don’t limit the amount of care you receive from your coach — instead we offer unlimited care and use statistics to understand how and when you like to consume it. Instead of directing you to medications as the first line of defense, technology helps us surface the most likely approaches that would work for you
And the beautiful thing with machine learning is that with each person who makes progress and gets better, the entire system gets smarter. This is why machine learning is shaping the future of healthcare.
This is working — Ginger.io is making an impact. There is a growing recognition among leading companies that their people are their greatest asset, and caring for their emotional well-being is crucial. Across a diverse mix of sectors including technology, manufacturing, professional services, healthcare and media, many mid-sized and large companies offer Ginger.io as part of the benefits available to every employee and dependent. Our mission is to make Ginger.io widely available — whether paid for by your employer, your health insurance or you.
My co-founder Karan Singh and I have been very privileged to be able to tackle this important social challenge with our amazing team at Ginger.io. We believe this is the start of a movement — machine learning and AI can truly benefit humanity in behavioral health. We’re driven to solve this problem because we believe that a better solution needs to exist in the world.
Join us in our journey.
Anmol Madan is the co-founder & CEO of Ginger.io — a provider of emotional and mental health care. Follow him on Medium.
