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In the next profile of our series featuring plenary presenters at the Annual Meeting…
Mental Health Apps and AI: Assessing the Current Evidence and Trends
Exploring the opportunities and challenges of integrating artificial intelligence into clinical practice
John Torous, MD, Digital Psychiatry Division, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Harvard Medical School, will explore the opportunities and challenges of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into clinical practice in a plenary at this year’s Academy Annual Meeting.
John Torous, MD
As digital technologies rapidly transform mental health care, this presentation offers a broad overview of emerging tools—from large language models and chatbots to mobile mental health apps—and examines their current and potential roles.
“While many AI-powered tools promise increased access, personalization, and engagement, most existing mental health chatbots remain untested and present unknown risks,” says Dr. Torous.
“Similarly, while mental health apps are widely available, few have undergone rigorous evaluation for safety, quality, or clinical effectiveness.”
Drawing from recent studies, the plenary will highlight how patients and clinicians may already be using tools such as generative AI while raising concerns about misinformation, bias, and loss of human oversight.
It will also review emerging standards and frameworks for evaluating AI and mental health apps, which aim to guide safe and meaningful use and draw parallels to automation in other fields, such as aviation, to underscore the need for thoughtful design, human-centered implementation, and continuous evaluation.
“Rather than asking if AI or apps will replace clinicians, we will focus on how to ensure these technologies enhance care in ethical, effective, and evidence-based ways,” says Dr. Torous.
Leading Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s Division of Digital Psychiatry, Dr. Torous, a board certified psychiatrist with a background in electrical engineering and computer sciences, uses digital technologies such as smartphones and wearable sensors to capture the lived experiences of those with mental illness across numerous domains ranging from cognition to sleep, mood to screen time, step count to circadian rhythms.
Drawing from clinical psychiatry, computer science, and data science he applies machine learning methods to uncover new patterns about mental health that allow better prediction of relapse in schizophrenia.
“Our digital work centers around an open-source digital health platform we have created called mindLAMP (Learn, Assess, Manage, Prevent) that enables digital phenotyping, mobile interventions, and remote research,” says Dr. Torous. “With the CORTEX platform, our freely accessible analysis tool that automatically turns patient or participant data into useful features and data visualization, we aim to provide valuable insight to clinicians and researchers.
“Our team is active in studying schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety disorders across the lifespan and building bridges between behavioral, cognitive, and clinical outcomes. Because of the scalability of this work, we have active projects in India, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, the UK, and many US sites.” Dr. Torous also serves as editor-in-chief for the journal JMIR Mental Health, web editor for JAMA Psychiatry, and is a member of various American Psychiatric Association committees.
Registration for this year’s ACLP Annual Meeting is open. Register here. The Annual Meeting—Innovation in C-L Psychiatry: Exploring the Promise and Pitfalls of New Approaches,in San Antonio, Texas, November 19-22—includes plenary presentations aboutoptogenetics,the potential clinical applications of artificial intelligence and large language models, as well as advances in women’s mental health.
Hotel reservationsare also open. ACLP has secured a discounted rate of $235 per night (plus taxes and fees) exclusively for meeting attendees at the meeting venue, the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa. Rooms are limited and tend to fill quickly. We encourage you to reserve early to ensure you’re at the center of the meeting experience.
The Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry is a professional organization of physicians who provide psychiatric care to people with coexisting psychiatric and medical illnesses, both in hospitals and in primary care. Our specialty is called consultation-liaison psychiatry because we consult with patients and liaise with their other clinicians about their care.
With nearly 2,000 members, the Academy is the voice of consultation-liaison psychiatry in the US with international reach.
Please browse our website, read our journal, Psychosomatics, and come to our annual meeting which is in November each year. In 2020 it will be a virtual event – see www.CLP2020.org for more details.
If you are a C-L Psychiatrist and not yet a member please join our great organization and welcoming, inclusive community. Please visit this page for details on joining.
