Sharing the load: how clinical AI helps clinicians excel

Sad to say, but clinician burnout is real, and it's a real problem. 

I know because I've been there: too many clients, too much turnover, too many new faces to connect with, understand, and help quickly. I didn’t feel good about the situation or myself as a therapist, and I wasn’t doing my best work. 

This is a big deal for the NHS because it is happening to clinicians on a mass scale. Nearly ⅓ of healthcare staff take time off for mental health reasons, and mental health services have higher rates of turnover and vacancies than the average. Burned-out clinicians leave due to unsustainable working conditions, leaving behind their colleagues to do even more with even less, resulting in worse performance and worse outcomes for clients.

Which is why Limbic’s latest peer-reviewed paper is exciting. 

In essence, it asked the question, “When a clinician assesses a new client in a frontline NHS therapy service, is it helpful for them to have detailed, structured information on that client?” And the answer, unsurprisingly, is, “Yes”.

The methodology was simple: 131 clinicians who regularly complete assessments in NHS Talking Therapies services were asked to report on their experience of using Limbic Access in their clinical practice. Limbic Access, an AI tool through which those seeking help can self-refer for therapy, provides the clinician with pre-assessment information on the client’s life circumstances, functioning, presenting problems (including likely diagnoses), and level of risk to self and others. 

When clinicians were asked about their experience of doing assessments with data from Limbic Access as compared to without it, they reported benefits across a range of dimensions: their well-being, performance, and cognitive load. These benefits were all statistically significant, and included large effect sizes.

Assessing new referrals is taxing, both emotionally and cognitively. It is a lot of work to hold in your mind what you have been told, what you still need to know, and the strict time limit of the assessment, while remaining responsive to the client, who might be quite distressed.

And the harder it feels for the clinician, the worse it is likely to feel for the client. This is their first conversation with a clinician in the service, and they could be feeling vulnerable and raw. If it is overly structured, intrusive, or hurried, the effect is alienating. Sure enough, research has found that using Limbic Access reduces the rate at which clients drop out of treatment by 18%. Perhaps clients feel genuinely heard and understood from the very first session.

When I meet new clients, the more I know about them ahead of time, the better, and it seems other therapists overwhelmingly agree. This is likely to be especially true for less experienced clinicians, or those working in busy frontline services.

So, the jury is in: Limbic Access works - for clients, for clinicians, and for the NHS. Having clarified that, we can move onto asking the more interesting question: What's next?

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Michael is a Clinical Psychologist with 14 years’ experience offering therapy in NHS and private settings. In his role at Limbic, he works on developing, testing, and marketing new products, and is excited to be working at the frontier of developments in psychotherapy.