Health Rhythms
Quantifying Behaviors, Redefining Mental Healthcare

Dr. Lena Evans is concerned about her efforts to help Max, a young software engineer struggling with depression. Partially because of his depression, Max has difficulty reporting what has transpired between his visits and is making slow progress in his recovery. Dr. Evans introduces Max to Health Rhythms. The app automatically gathers his Behavioral Vital Signs™, offering a continuous, objective lens into his mental health.

With the information on Health Rhythms’ clinician dashboard, Dr. Evans makes targeted treatment adjustments, offers Max suggestions for behavior change, and sees if he can implement them. Within a few weeks, Max’s depressive symptoms improved substantially, as did his ability to perform at work and enjoy time with his friends.

Through AI analysis of his daily behaviors and self-reported depression scores, this novel approach provides both Max and Dr. Evans with insights into the patterns of his mood fluctuations, enabling a personalized treatment plan: the right interventions at the right time for Max.

Max’s experience illustrates how Health Rhythms offers the potential of predictive care, setting a new standard that promises empowerment and precision for patients and providers.

Until now, psychiatric medicine has had no objective guidelines for diagnosing, selecting treatments, or monitoring therapeutic progress. This left a gaping hole in the ability to care for individuals with mental health disorders, develop new treatment approaches, or reliably assess intervention efficacy. The rest of modern medicine has benefitted from objective measurements for more than a century and from continuous, objective measurement of conditions like cardiac arrhythmia in the patient’s natural environment for nearly 60 years. Now, there’s a way to measure mental health.

“Our platform combines the multi-dimensional sensing capabilities of smartphones with embedded cloud computing platforms, and novel AI algorithms to continuously, objectively, and accurately measure mental health status and do so at scale,” says Ellen Frank, PhD, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Health Rhythms.

Focused on clinical depression, Health Rhythms’ technology reduces the personal and financial costs associated with untreated mental disorders and equips patients with insights they’ve never had before. With Health Rhythms’ Behavioral Vital Signs™, clinicians can make informed treatment decisions and health systems can allocate resources based on urgency of need.

This represents a major departure from traditional methods that rely solely on subjective patient self-reports or periodic in-person assessments.

Health Rhythms has developed over 85 inferences pertinent to mental health that correlate with responses to pharmaceutical and behavioral treatments. Their platform relays this data to healthcare providers, clinic managers, healthcare systems, and payors. For example, a provider caring for a patient with depression would receive regular updates outlining the patient's progress.

"Our long-term vision is to be the intelligence behind whatever format is used to monitor a patient’s mental health, from electronic health records, clinical dashboards, to digital companions," says Paul Gilbert, CEO of Health Rhythms.

A partnership with the University of Colorado Health System marks a significant milestone for Health Rhythms. The company impressed the university with its ability to identify critical issues like suicidal ideation and escalating manic symptoms in a 100-patient pilot study. This success spurred the university to expand its Health Rhythms deployment to even more patients and double its financial investment in the company.

Our technology uses mobile sensing, cloud computing, and AI algorithms to continuously and accurately measure an individual’s mental health status

The National Institutes of Health, major investors from Silicon Valley, and strategic investor Otsuka Pharmaceutical, have also recognized Health Rhythms' potential to set a new industry standard. To date, they’ve collectively invested over $40 million.

Driven to advance patient well-being, Health Rhythms is redefining how mental health is reported, tracked, and quantified. Patients like Max benefit from an objective source of measurement and finally feel seen and understood by their providers. Clinicians are better able to monitor and care for their patients with never-before-seen metrics.