SilverCloud Health has officially announced its research collaboration with Microsoft to further enhance its online offering with artificial intelligence. SilverCloud Health and Microsoft Labs in Cambridge have been working together over the past 18 months, in research that combines Microsoft’s cutting-edge machine learning and AI technologies with SilverCloud’s expertise in real-world delivery of evidence-based interventions and mental health outcomes.
Mental illness is a significant disease and economic burden; one in four adults are affected by a diagnosable mental health condition in any given year but access to mental healthcare is often difficult to access due to resource constrained services. The delivery of care online helps to overcome these barriers.
SilverCloud’s digital mental health platform is used across 75% of NHS mental health services in IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) and over 250 organisations globally. With over 1 million hours of therapy delivered since spinning out from research in 2012, the breadth of this data provides a unique opportunity for this deep research collaboration and will change how online therapy is delivered for the NHS.
Together, Microsoft and SilverCloud Health are using machine learning and artificial intelligence to accelerate the understanding and delivery of personalised mental healthcare that responds to each patient’s unique situation, including early interventions to optimise clinical outcomes, thereby ensuring patients have access to the right support and content at the right time and in the right context. Further opportunities also exist in identifying successful patterns in therapist/supporter behaviour to improve therapeutic effectiveness.
“SilverCloud Health is one of the very few digital mental health platforms that has been deployed at scale in routine clinical care, and currently has the largest real-world patient user base of its kind,” said Christopher Bishop, Lab Director, Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK. “The aim of this project is very much aligned to our ambition to empower healthcare workers and patients through access to effective, intelligent technologies.”
“Through this exciting research collaboration with Microsoft, SilverCloud Health will be able to leverage the latest in artificial intelligence and machine learning to further enhance our digital mental health platform,” said Ken Cahill, CEO of SilverCloud Health. “This truly is therapy for the 21st century; enabling more personalised treatment, earlier and easier access, and most importantly delivering ever increasing clinical outcomes.”
SilverCloud Health is an evidence-based digital mental health platform that removes many of the barriers that prevent patients from accessing mental health services, including cost, access, clinical resources and stigma, enabling healthcare institutions to deliver clinically validated digital therapeutic care that improves outcomes and lowers costs. The company currently offers a comprehensive library of 30+ programs supported by 16 years of clinical and academic research and backed by more than 16 published papers, with over 65 percent of their service users showing a clinically significant reduction in symptom scores.
For further insight please read: Microsoft collaborates with SilverCloud Health to develop AI for improved mental health
