Tracking behavioral health outcomes and therapist performance has long been a challenge. Unlike other areas of medicine, psychiatry often lacks structured metrics to evaluate whether interventions are working and how clinicians are performing. However, recent advances in telehealth and digital health technologies are beginning to change that. Digital tools for mental health outcomes are helping providers gain insights that were previously difficult or impossible to capture.
At The Future of Mental Health event, experts discussed how these tools could provide actionable information on patient progress, clinician performance, and effective interventions, helping behavioral health organizations deliver care that is both compassionate and data-driven.
Why Measurement-Based Care Matters
“Psychiatry has a lot of very good, very well-validated tools that are associated with outcomes,” said Dr. Seth D. Feuerstein, faculty at Yale School of Medicine and serial entrepreneur. “We just don’t use them.”
These tools, including PHQ-9 and GAD-7 assessments, allow clinicians to quantify patient progress. By integrating these tools into routine care, therapists can shift from reactive care—responding to issues as they arise—to proactive, personalized interventions. Digital tools for mental health outcomes make it possible to capture these metrics consistently, providing a foundation for measurement-based care.
Startups Leading the Way
U.K.-based ieso is a prime example of how digital tools for mental health outcomes can transform therapy. By recording patients’ PHQ-9 and GAD-7 scores, ieso tracks outcomes while providing therapists with feedback.
Andrew Welchman, executive vice president of impact at ieso, explained:
“We make a prediction for the expected outcome for a given patient and then look at the performance of the therapist relative to that set of predictions. So because each case is unique, everybody’s presenting the data and profile. You can’t just compare simple cases.”
This approach enables clinicians to see how their treatment aligns with expected outcomes and identify interventions that are most effective. Data can also guide the planning of future appointments, moving care from reactive to proactive.
Interestingly, ieso’s data showed that empathy, while crucial for rapport, is not strongly correlated with measurable patient improvement:
“It’s one of the worst predictors. The key point, though, is not that you shouldn’t be empathetic, but actually spending too much time being empathetic is actually not moving the conversation along,” Welchman noted.
This insight illustrates how digital tools for mental health outcomes can challenge traditional assumptions and provide more precise guidance for clinicians.
Improving Specialized Care
Digital health solutions are also making an impact in specialized areas. NOCD, a virtual provider for individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder, developed an EMR system that tracks OCD symptom reduction, anxiety, stress, and comorbid conditions.
Stephen Smith, co-founder and CEO of NOCD, explained:
“We can actually identify providers who might need immediate intervention in terms of training and supervision. Every one of our clinicians goes through a clinician training program. Then they get actively supervised. If someone isn’t seeing a change in [outcomes] that we’re hoping for, our system allows our clinical team to easily identify that provider and provide supervision. …We’re using data just to inform our decision making and better allocate our time.”
By using digital tools for mental health outcomes, NOCD ensures that both clinicians and patients benefit from continuous monitoring, timely interventions, and data-driven insights into effective care strategies.
Benefits Beyond the Clinic
Beyond improving care for individual patients, digital tools for mental health outcomes provide value to payers and organizations. They offer transparency into which interventions work best and how clinicians perform, helping guide reimbursement models and resource allocation.
Yet Dr. Feuerstein cautions that the field has historically been hesitant to share detailed data with insurers:
“I think we’re afraid, actually as a field, to get too much quantified data because we know it’ll push us to either dealing with sicker patients or more complex patients, or doing things that are more intensive or exhausting. For us, it will require a reshuffling.”
Balancing Privacy and Performance
While the benefits of digital tools for mental health outcomes are clear, clinicians have voiced concerns about privacy and potential “performative pressure.” Continuous monitoring and performance feedback can be stressful if clinicians feel their every session is scrutinized.
Implementing these tools requires careful attention to confidentiality, clinician autonomy, and patient comfort. When used thoughtfully, however, they provide unprecedented insights into care quality and patient progress.
Looking Ahead
The future of behavioral health is data-driven. By integrating digital tools for mental health outcomes into routine practice, providers can measure progress, enhance clinician performance, and deliver more effective, personalized care.
From general mental health therapy to specialized virtual programs, these tools allow clinicians to track outcomes, identify effective interventions, and support continuous professional development. While challenges remain, the potential to improve both patient care and operational efficiency makes digital tools for mental health outcomes a transformative force in the industry.
