Empowered Patient Podcast Impact of Integrating AI into Behavioral Health Workflow and Patient Engagement with Ram Krishnan Valant
Ram Krishnan, CEO of Valant, uses AI to make mental health care more accessible through their practice management and patient engagement platforms designed specifically for mental health providers. AI is applied to improve administrative efficiency, address billing and compliance, and drive successful patient outcomes. New solutions are needed due to the growing patient population for mental health services and the potential of advanced therapeutics that are transforming the behavioral health environment, where demand is outpacing the supply of mental health care providers.
Ram explains, "If I took a step back, AI - let's describe what AI is across a practice. Multiple functional verticals exist within a practice, including marketing. A team is trying to acquire the right type of patients. There's your administrative vertical, if you will, which is just making sure you're running the business well. You have your clinical vertical, which is the time the clinician, prescriber, psychiatrist, and practitioner spend with the patient. There's billing, making sure you're getting paid for all this work, and there's compliance along the way. And each of these verticals has the potential to have an increased efficiency, first and foremost, by AI. Secondly, behind it are improved outcomes."
"Yes, I think we are getting into a wild realm of possibilities for our application of AI. I think what we are making in our systems is a cautious and practical, pragmatic approach of working our way through the functions that I laid out, and then the goals in terms of efficiency. I think there is a wide range of potential here with AI. When people think of AI in mental health, they immediately think of an AI avatar of some kind that you can converse with and becomes a replacement for the therapist and a replacement for the understanding and awareness of everything. From the words you're choosing to the changes in your vocal modulation to the facial expressions on your face. Putting that all through the analytics to come back and assess risk of things like you said, suicide ideation or violence, potential violence. I think those are much later-term applications. There has to be a purpose behind that."
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