By Geoffrey Melada | October 20, 2025
The Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute hosted a half-day event in Washington, D.C., Oct. 9 called “Brights Spots in Digital Mental Health: Policy & Practice Solutions to Improve Outcomes.”
Sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, the event fostered conversation between digital mental health technology leaders, mental health policy experts, policymakers and influencers, and other mental health stakeholders on advancing digital mental health technology (DHMT) policy and practice, especially tech-enabled measurement.
In panel discussions moderated by Meadows Institute leaders Kacie Kelly, John Snook, and Michelle Durham and Behavioral Health Tech president and CEO Solome Tibebu, the conversation focused on current policy and regulatory opportunities for DMHT, successful examples of tech-enabled measurement in mental health care, and best practices on how to scale policy and practice solutions.
Here are four key takeaways from the summit:
- Measurement-informed care takes the guesswork out of mental health care.Measurement was the mantra of the day as speakers emphasized that digital tools, AI, and increased investment are revolutionizing the role of measurement in behavioral health care. Long an area that has experienced chronic underinvestment, care that incorporates validated assessments is critical in this new digital world, industry leaders said. Measurement-informed care helps providers detect which patients are not improving before the point of crisis and leads to a dramatic 20% to 30% improvement in outcomes, said Dr. Millard Brown, chief medical officer at Spring Health.
- Don’t be afraid to engage on AI.Numerous speakers acknowledged the need to look beyond the unfortunate and alarming headlines about AI-assisted therapy bots. “AI is more than chatbots,” Christopher Molaro, CEO and founder of NeuroFlow, told the audience. His company uses it to aggregate data and “put clues together” that will identify at-risk patients and get people to the right care, he said. AI is a “really powerful tool for providers to feel confident they are matching patients with the right treatment,” agreed Tammer Attallah, executive clinical director of Intermountain Health. “The opportunities are exciting to me in a way that I have never been before in behavioral health.”
- Digital mental health technology can speed up the adoption of measurement-informed care and other evidence-based practices.Clinicians often worry about new tools and technologies adding to their already busy workloads, but when developed and implemented with both the clinicians and patients in mind, technology can ease the adoption of measurement-informed care and other evidenced-based practices. Lauren Conaboy, vice president of national policy at Centerstone, said her nonprofit health system learned to “stop measuring everything” and start “targeting measurement toward the diagnosis.” The key to driving implementation of DMHT, she stressed, is to be transparent about the goals and uses of new tools. “We highlight the ‘why’ when we are implementing something new,” she said.
- Investment in electronic health record infrastructure is needed to unlock the full potential of behavioral health tech.As the federal government explores opportunities to improve the overall infrastructure of health tech, behavioral health should be prioritized. For digital mental health solutions to scale, more investment is needed in behavioral health systems’ technological infrastructure. As noted by Dr. Todd Kasdan, senior medical director of Aetna/CVS Health, behavioral health has historically been left out of health care redesign and technology infrastructure improvements (e.g., the HITECH Act). One bright spot: the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and SAMHSA’s initiative to standardize mental health care data and support interoperability across behavioral health, noted John Snook, the Meadows Institute’s chief policy officer. Snook also pointed to another bright spot: the passage of the SUPPORT Act reauthorization, bipartisan federal legislation that requires the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to bring together national stakeholders to examine how expanded use of electronic health records can improve outcomes for patients in behavioral health settings and how to best increase behavioral health electronic health record adoption.
Many attendees expressed their eagerness to continue the conversation and the importance of highlighting the many successes of digital mental health technology.
One way to stay connected and informed is by subscribing to HeadsUp, a federal policy consultation service created specifically for investors and entrepreneurs advancing innovations in the mental health, brain health, and neurotech sectors.
Recently launched by the Meadows Institute, HeadsUp provides direct, real-time access to expert perspectives and analysis, making sure leaders are equipped and positioned for effective action when it’s needed most.
Visit https://mmhpi.org/headsup/ or email headsup@mmhpi.org to learn more.
