CAMBRIDGE, England & BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new study by ieso Digital Health in collaboration with the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) reveals that its AI-driven digital program delivered results comparable to traditional human-led therapy for generalized anxiety. Requiring up to eight times fewer therapist hours per patient, the ieso Digital Program offers hope to the one in five Americans with anxiety disorders and a scalable solution for the 301 million people living with anxiety disorders globally.
Developed by expert clinicians and using the latest advances in AI, the ieso Digital Program offers a six-module course facilitated by a conversational agent. It provides real-time, tailored interactions to teach users skills to manage their anxiety based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) principles – a gold-standard treatment. The program combines an app for AI-delivered content with a human support service.
In ieso’s ground-breaking study of 300 volunteers with mild to severe anxiety, 82 percent of participants who used the program for up to nine weeks showed a clinically meaningful decrease in anxiety symptoms, which can include worry, sleeplessness and fatigue. Even those with severe anxiety benefited from marked improvements, and more than half experienced a reduction in symptoms within two weeks, on average. The program, benchmarked against carefully matched NHS patient data (n=767), proved as effective as human-led therapy. Notable improvements in day-to-day functioning and sustained benefits one month after completion underscore the program’s potential to significantly alleviate the mental health burden on individuals, healthcare systems and the economy.
Participants interacted with the program at their convenience, while the human support service kept them motivated and monitored symptom progression. Ninety-four percent of participants valued having a therapist available if needed, yet only 15 percent of participants used this support. ieso has partnered with the NHS for more than a decade as a digital mental health provider, delivering measurement-based, outcomes-focused tele-mental health care, publicly reporting results as part of the highly regarded NHS Talking Therapies program.
ieso is unique in its ability to develop safe and effective digital programs given its established track record of delivering high-quality therapy, and combining its in-house clinical, scientific and AI expertise to understand ‘what works’ in therapy. ieso does this by analyzing a world-leading outcomes-linked dataset, comprising 750,000-plus hours of de-identified therapy delivered to more than 135,000 patients. This dataset was also used to robustly evidence the safety of the content produced by the AI-driven conversational agent in ieso’s digital program.
Dr. Clare Palmer, Ph.D., Director of Evidence Generation at ieso and Scientific Director of the study said:
“The study’s exciting results represent a major step forward on the journey to scalable mental health support to meet the growing global demand. We’ve seen one of the largest effects on anxiety reduction in any study, with benefits that persist for at least a month, and we were even able to help people with severe levels of anxiety. The results far exceeded our expectations for what could be achieved through combining this technology with human support.”
Dr. Alyssa Dietz, Ph.D., Head of U.S. Clinical Strategy at ieso added:
“As a clinician and digital mental health veteran, I feel confident these results will help move mental healthcare in the U.S. toward value-based care models. For consumers, a model like this provides near immediate access to high quality care. Importantly, it offers a discreet and personalized experience, one where access to skills backed by robust evidence is guaranteed. There are many reasons a flexible program is an ideal option: people from marginalized groups may prefer the increased privacy, shift-workers who need non-business hours access, or a busy parent where it can be really hard to find a fixed, regular time to care for yourself."
Dr. Sara Johansen, M.D., Director of the Digital Mental Health Clinic at Stanford University School of Medicine1 commented:
“Combining digital interventions with human-delivered care leverages the strengths of both approaches. In this model, digital tools deliver evidence-based mental health content at scale, with human support to assess the clinical presentation, provide accountability to increase engagement, and intervene when clinical need escalates. A blended model with both digital and human-delivered care can address the need for scalable mental health support while ensuring that treatment is safe, engaging and effective.”
ieso is backed by strong global investors including Morningside, IP Group, Molten Ventures, Ananda Impact Ventures and Sony Innovation Fund. Its latest raise was a $53M Series B in 2021. Variants of the ieso digital program are currently being piloted with U.S. payers and health systems.
About ieso Digital Health
ieso is transforming mental healthcare by marrying the latest advancements in clinical AI with human support models in order to deliver 100 percent evidence-based care; delivering symptom recovery faster and at a fraction of the cost. With offices in Cambridge, England and Boston, ieso translates insights from 750,000-plus hours of therapy delivered to 135,000-plus patients into products that deliver more effective, efficient, and scalable mental healthcare, globally.
NHS Talking Therapies Partner
ieso has been an NHS Talking Therapies partner for more than a decade, providing confidential typed and video CBT via computer or smartphone to adults with common mental health conditions. Each patient is connected to a therapist for a one-to-one conversation via a secure digital platform. ieso monitors patients’ mental health measures before, during and after therapy, and transparently reports these measures so that the NHS can monitor the quality of the care ieso provides. To learn more about the ieso talking therapies service, please visit ieso’s NHS patient-facing website at www.iesohealth.com.
1 Dr. Johansen receives compensation as a clinical advisor to ieso Digital Health.
