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Two Chairs is excited to announce new measurement-based care (MBC) capabilities to support clinicians and clients track therapeutic progress and improve health outcomes. The new ‘mental health snapshots’ provide real-time insight into a client’s well-being, allowing therapists to personalize treatment plans, empower clients, and strengthen the therapeutic alliance.
The bond between clinician and client is the predominant predictor of treatment success or failure. Unlike physical fitness, athletic performance, or weight loss, which have definite end goals, behavioral health progress is personal, subjective, and harder to identify. Nearly half of people who begin therapy quit due to a range of common client issues:
- disagreement with their therapist about what the problem is
- a perceived lack of relational safety with their therapist
- a lack of strong relational rapport with or confidence in their therapist
- a belief that they are not improving quickly enough
- unrealistic expectations of treatment progress and outcomes
Clinicians face similar challenges in providing care to their patient base, with the added difficulty of quickly and proactively identifying patients who are not progressing as expected, given their dynamic rosters of patients.
Two Chairs helps alleviate some of these common issues by bridging the feedback loop between client and clinician. Based on MBC, which is defined as the use of repeated, validated measures to track symptoms and outcomes in the clinical setting, the ‘mental health snapshots’ provide a novel way for client and clinician to interact.
On the morning of every session, clients receive a digital check-in request that takes no more than five minutes to complete. The questions are from standardized, clinically validated assessments of anxiety and depression–GAD-7 and the PHQ-9. Once completed, clients receive a snapshot of their progress in areas such as sleep, mood, self-esteem, restlessness, eating, and more. Clinical insights and reflection prompts are also shared, allowing clients to develop a better understanding of their well-being, feel more inclined to communicate with their clinician, and take a more involved role in their care, which can lead to better outcomes.
Research shows a nearly 75 percent improvement in remission rates between patients receiving MBC for behavioral health and those who received usual care. While proven to be effective, less than 20 percent of behavioral health practitioners have integrated MBC into their practices, and few, if any, use a system that can consistently surface indicators to both clinicians and their clients concurrently.
When clinicians know if the therapeutic alliance or the client's symptoms or goals need attention, they are then able to positively alter the therapeutic alliance and improve client well-being.
“Across the industry, clients and clinicians have struggled to monitor and track progress over time and align on therapeutic goals. While the idea of mental health snapshots sounds simple, it’s incredibly difficult to implement and adhere to at scale,” said Two Chairs Vice President of Clinical Care, Colleen Marshall. “Two Chairs’ new care capabilities are among the first of its kind, and allow both the clinician and the client to know how care is going. When clinicians know if the therapeutic alliance or the client's symptoms or goals need attention, they are then able to positively alter the therapeutic alliance and improve client well-being.”
After clients complete their check-in, results are tabulated in a standardized and user-friendly clinical dashboard where therapists can view any changes to the client’s PHQ9 and GAD7 scores. The care platform also provides data-informed insights, including risk indicators, markers for remission, and score lines that track therapeutic progress.
Two Chairs’ data-informed insights can also be used to demonstrate the value of mental health services to insurance payers, which can inform reimbursement policies and improve funding allocated towards mental health care across the U.S. The solution to quality, accessible mental health services is multimodal, and MBC holds an important role in improving how care is currently delivered.
We believe that technology and data can enable care, not replace licensed therapist-led psychotherapy treatment. That’s why we are dedicated to introducing capabilities that empower our clients to track progress and feel better faster.
“Our mission at Two Chairs is to ensure everyone has access to exceptional mental healthcare. We believe that technology and data can enable care, not replace licensed therapist-led psychotherapy treatment. That’s why we are dedicated to introducing capabilities that empower our clients to track progress and feel better faster,” said Two Chairs CEO and Founder, Alex Katz. “The new mental health snapshots align with the core of what we do: matching clients with the right therapists who can expertly guide them throughout their mental healthcare journey.”
Learn more about Two Chairs’ new ‘mental health snapshots’ and how we guide our clients through the MBC process here.
