Two Chairs, a hybrid behavioral health provider, has launched a data dashboard so patients can see insights into their therapy progress.
My Care Journey builds on the company’s measurement-based care approach and aims to prompt deeper patient engagement in therapeutic goals and treatment. Measurement-based care leverages patient-reported outcome questionnaires to track their progress. It is practiced by fewer than 20% of behavioral health providers nationwide.
“Care in behavioral health or mental health spaces is very hard to show and have clients experience progress,” Colleen Marshall, LMFT, chief clinical officer at Two Chairs, told Fierce Healthcare in an exclusive interview. But seeing progress is really important “because it instills hope,” Marshall said.
The patient-facing dashboard presents the data in a digestible way to give patients a clear understanding of their mental health progress. It is intended as an opportunity to reflect and prompt additional conversations with their therapist.
Clinicians determine when to share the data and can add personal notes to provide important context. “The data is a big part of the story, but it’s not the only part of the story,” Marshall explained, adding that clinical judgment also remains paramount.
The company launched a dashboard for clinicians to visualize these insights in 2023. Two Chairs clinicians are trained on measurement-based care when they are onboarded. The company collects patient-reported outcomes data on nearly all patients and does so 94% of the time before every appointment. That adherence is possible in part because Two Chairs mandates that its W2-employed therapists measure. If they were 1099 contractors, this would not be possible.
“The only way we believe we can do that is a W2 model because we can require our clinicians to attend trainings, to adjust their clinical approach,” Marshall said.
In the testing phase for My Care Journey, Two Chairs found that the average cadence for sharing this data back with patients is every four weeks. However, providers have access to this data at all times on a continual basis.
Seeing the data can help patients notice patterns and determine what is helping their progress. That knowledge can then support them even when they are done with treatment. “We don’t want people in care forever. We want them to come learn the skills they need to learn, and then use them in their life,” Marshall noted.
Having a nonjudgmental feedback loop for the provider is also crucial, she added. Providers need to understand if what they say and do is helping a patient. Tracking and sharing the data creates psychological safety for both parties and encourages them to work collaboratively on treatment goals. “It’s really hard to give feedback to people,” Marshall said, “but with therapy, we have to be able to talk about it.”
While the bulk of Two Chairs care is teletherapy, it also has in-person clinics in California, Washington and Florida. It employs nearly 600 clinicians, most of whom are full-time. Measurement-based care happens across the board, no matter the setting.