Forging Psychiatry’s Technology-Driven Future – Dr. David Mou, Chief Medical Officer at Cerebral

Early on in his psychiatry career, Dr. David Mou found to his surprise that most mental health professionals didn’t prioritize using data to measure outcomes. Today, he attributes much of the early success of Cerebral -- the new and fast-growing mental telehealth company he helps lead -- to its data-driven approach to supporting quality of care. “This is the first step towards precision psychiatry,” he tells host Shiv Gaglani. Mou notes that on the basis of relatively little user data, companies like Facebook and Netflix successfully predict users’ future behavior for commercial gain. “We should just use that principle for good instead of using it to market to people,” he says. For instance, analyzing behavior patterns to predict suicide. He argues that a data-oriented psychiatric model not only opens up new research possibilities and makes for happy doctors, but also enables the treatment of the most serious mental health disorders via telemedicine, which is not currently a common practice. Tune in to hear about Olympic gymnast Simone Biles’ new role at Cerebral, why even doctors often don’t get the psychiatric care they need, and why Dr. Mou is “bullish” on the clinical future of psychedelics. If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast