Monitoring, data collection, and interventions are only a few of the ways in which the Ginger.io smartphone app can help doctors and their patients assess mental health issues.
The app, created by MIT researchers, is a new way for patients and health care givers to communicate. Patients fill out surveys about their conditions, routines and treatments and the app collects the data and adds it to a wealth of information from accelerometers, GPS, and phone logs on individuals' phones. Any deviations in medication, visits and phone use are taken into account. Serious behavioral abnormalities that it may detect cause the phone to alert both the user and his or her health care provider.
For example, "You have traveled 50 percent less on Thursday" alerts the user that he or she is exhibiting unusual lethargy, a symptom of mental health problems such as depression. It can then send a text to the patient's health care provider explaining the abnormal behavior. If an intervention seems necessary, a little box next to the patient's name turns from green to red.
Anmol Madan, PhD '11 from MIT and CEO and co-founder of Ginger.io explains the intervention process. "In most of those cases, the institutions have already set up care-management programs and teams responsible for keeping people healthy, so when they get the alert, they call and see what's really going on," he says. "Then, they make that decision of having the patient come in to see a doctor or handle the issue over the phone."
Madan and his colleagues experimented for years with "reality mining", or using algorithms with mobile data to assess people's movements, behaviors and, possibly, disease transmissions. They found that they can predict an incoming cold, anxiety o stress based off the users phone and travel habits and deviations from such habits.
Madan then looked into symptomatic depressive behaviors and realized he could pick them out with the algorithms.
"I realized this was something that could find meaning beyond the 80 people in my study; it could have significant impact on the way we think about health care."
Ginger.io is now set to grow significantly in the coming years. The health care system, Madan says, is shifting its focus to keeping people healthy and preventing illness.
"We're looking to really scale through the health care system in the next couple of years." Currently, Ginger.io is used at more than 25 health care facilities and academic institutions in the U.S.
