Leveraging Digital Medicine to Support Providers and Their Patients in Managing Serious Mental Illness

Recent national statistics show that an estimated 11.2 million American adults live with serious, chronic forms of mental illness. The burden of mental illness is considerable for these individuals, their families, and communities. Effective medical treatment for serious mental illness (SMI) requires a patient-centered approach that engages patients in shared decision-making and supports the therapeutic alliance. Information regarding medication-taking behavior is essential for making treatment decisions, particularly in the instance of suboptimal therapeutic response. However, the evidence suggests that the probability of nonconformity with prescribed medication is elevated for individuals with SMI and that clinicians often overestimate their patients' adherence to medication-taking behaviors. In patients with SMI, unidentified problems with adherence may lead to unnecessary changes in treatment regimen and increased rates of hospitalization. Although various approaches have been used to assess medication ingestion with greater accuracy, none are without limitation. The growing field of digital medicine has introduced tools that engage patients for clinical purposes, gather and organize clinical data, and help measure care quality. Physician surveys show an appreciable increase in physician adoption of digital clinical tools, and studies suggest that a significant population of patients with SMI own and are comfortable using digital devices and tools. Digital tools designed to help people with SMI have the potential to transform the support and care available to people with mental health disorders, bridging a technology gap in mental health services.