AI’s Role in Mental Health & Substance Use Disorder Treatment

Future AI Uses Guardian Recovery is Exploring 

Future Guardian Recovery Client Implications

• Early Detection / Predictive Analytics — AI can analyze a client’s behavior, speech, and social-media activity to detect early signs of substance use disorder. This allows for early intervention, which can significantly improve client outcomes.
• Personalized Treatment — Effective treatment plans are highly tailored to the unique needs of each individual. AI can assist with this customization by quickly analyzing a client’s medical history, genetic information, and lifestyle factors to create a personalized treatment plan that can then be reviewed and adjusted by professionals with knowledge of the individual. 
• Relapse Prevention — Relapse seems to happen out of the blue, but undetected warning signs are typically present. Based on insights gathered during treatment, such as a client’s thought and behavior patterns, AI can monitor client behavior and physiological indicators to predict potential relapses. This allows providers to intervene proactively, potentially preventing a relapse before it occurs. AI can also provide clients with resources and coping strategies to help them manage cravings and avoid relapses. 
• Biometric- and Location-Tracking Devices — AI-enabled wearable devices can track physiological indicators of stress, anxiety, and/or substance cravings, alerting both clients and caregivers to potential issues. Additionally, the technology can be used to track activity, sleep, and nutrition to help clients monitor their self-care habits, which are vital to recovery. AI can also provide drug-screen monitoring in real time to therapists and sober advocates, allowing for timely adjustments to the treatment plan and immediate intervention in case of a crisis. Some technologies can even alert providers if a client enters a high-risk environment filled with potential triggers.
• Virtual Reality Therapy (VRT) — VRT pushes the physical boundaries of traditional treatment by virtually transporting clients to a lifelike environment filled with realistic triggers. Within this atmosphere, clients can practice relapse-prevention techniques and learn to deal more effectively with triggers within the safe, virtual world. 
• Automated Appointment Scheduling — AI can provide automated appointment scheduling, reducing wait times and improving client access to care.
• Support and Engagement / Chatbots and Digital Assistants — Offering a sense of community support as well as ongoing information, AI-powered chatbots, apps, and digital health platforms can provide 24/7 support, offering resources and coping strategies when they’re needed most. 
• Natural Language Processing and Translation — AI can analyze client conversations and written communication to detect early signs of mental health issues or changes in emotional state. Additionally, it can translate conversations into various languages in real time.
• Medication Management — AI can help optimize medication dosages, predict potential drug interactions, and monitor client adherence to treatment plans.

Guardian Exploring Behavioral Health Business Applications

• Customer Service — AI is revolutionizing customer service through the use of chatbots and virtual assistants. These tools can handle a large volume of customer inquiries simultaneously, providing instant responses and freeing up human agents to handle more complex issues. AI can also analyze customer feedback and behavior to provide personalized service and improve customer satisfaction.
• Sales and Marketing — Able to analyze vast amounts of data to identify patterns and trends, AI can help businesses better understand their customers and target their marketing efforts more effectively. Along these same lines, AI can automate repetitive sales and marketing tasks, such as sending follow-up emails or posting on social media.
• Human Resources — Along with streamlining the recruitment process by automating tasks such as resume screening and initial interviews, AI can also analyze employee data to identify patterns and trends, helping businesses improve employee satisfaction and retention.
• Decision-Making — AI can analyze vast amounts of data to provide insights and predictions, helping businesses make informed decisions. It can also automate routine decision-making tasks, freeing up human managers to focus on strategic decisions.
• Finance — Playing critical roles in fraud detection, risk management, and investment decision-making, AI algorithms can analyze financial data to assess the risks and rewards of particular investment.
• Data Analysis and Research — With the ability to analyze large datasets, AI can help identify trends in substance use disorders and treatment strategies. This in turn can lead to the development of new insights and treatment approaches, improving client care in the long term.

  Tackling Data and Privacy Concerns

  Despite the many benefits of AI in mental health and substance use disorder treatment, it’s important that facilities also take into account the various risks associated with the technology. Here are a few potential AI drawbacks specific to the behavioral health industry.
  • Data Privacy — Whenever you collect client data, you must abide by data privacy and storage regulations, and that means not exposing data to AI applications that can somehow share that information outside of your organization. Granted, most AI applications already address data-privacy concerns. The point is, however, facilities must remain transparent about their data collection and retention practices and take the appropriate security measures to properly encrypt, secure, and potentially store protected data.
  • Integration — Some AI tools are basically plug-and-play solutions that need no integration. Others require significant time and money to integrate effectively with existing solutions. So the caution here is merely to identify integration parameters rather than assuming all apps will play well together. 
  • Dehumanization — Treating human behavioral health disorders requires a human touch. So facilities and caregivers need to maintain a balance between AI-driven solutions and personal communication.