Modern Health, a digital mental health company, is doubling down on AI by acquiring Anvil Health’s AI technology, the company announced last week.
San Francisco-based Modern Health serves employers and offers one-on-one and group mental health support, as well as self-guided material. It works with patients on emotional, financial, professional, social and physical well-being needs.
The company has long used AI to provide care recommendations and match patients with the treatment that’s best for them but it wanted to ramp up its capabilities through this acquisition. Anvil Health has an AI-powered solution called Ascribe, which documents and summarizes consultations.
“We see that [AI] is advancing,” said Jesse Calderon, chief technology officer at Modern Health, in an interview. “The large language models in particular have really been a step function increase in how you can apply AI to these use cases. … We are seeing more desire and willingness from members, from clients. I think people are still very risk averse, still very cautious. So this acquisition was an acknowledgment that we do want to do more in this space.”
Modern Health declined to share the terms of the deal.
Anvil Health was co-founded by Jon Bischke and Paul Clark, and the latter will join Modern Health as head of AI strategy.
“It’s been impressive to see Modern Health’s ongoing technical innovation introducing sustainable and first-to-market care modalities like community Circles and its 1:1 care offering, Pathways. The company persistently challenges the status quo, ensuring that every person is connected to the right care wherever they are in their journey,” Clark said in a statement. “When used responsibly, technologies such as AI have enormous potential to change outcomes and even lives for millions of people around the world. I believe Modern Health is uniquely positioned to lead this market, and I’m thrilled to join the team.”
Circles refers to Modern Health’s online workshops, listen & learns and discussions that are focused on mental health topics and led by therapists and coaches.
Modern Health is still in the development phase of determining how it will deploy Anvil’s technology. It is working with customer advisory boards and consultant advisory boards to determine how the technology can be rolled out safely and effectively.
“I think what’s clear to me is that there’s great potential in using this technology to provide more personalized, more self-guided experiences,” Calderon said. “The question is how do we build out that capability, test it, prove that it can be safe?”
Research shows that more than one in five American adults live with a mental illness, but only half of people with a diagnosis get treatment. By building out its AI capabilities, Modern Health ultimately aims to improve mental health care by making it more personalized for patients, Calderon said.
“I think there’s a great opportunity to use more and more data to create this highly tailored, highly personalized experience so that people are using a system that feels like they know them. … I think the technology will really allow us to do that in a way that the previous technologies just weren’t robust enough, they weren’t fast enough, they weren’t accurate enough. Large language models in particular give us that ability to create that highly personalized, rich experience,” he said.
Other digital mental health companies that serve employers include Lyra Health and Spring Health.
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