Digital psychiatry: concepts, framework, and implications

Area of Science:

• Digital Psychiatry
• Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
• Mental Health Technology

Background:

• Digital psychiatry merges clinical psychiatric practices with intelligent digital approaches.
• Current digital tools like smartphone apps, VR, and chatbots are foundational but limited.
• Advances in large-scale pre-trained models (PTMs) and digital humans offer new possibilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a framework for fully automating mental health practices through digital psychiatry.
• To outline the development of a fully-automated digital psychiatric system.
• To explore the potential for digital psychiatric clinics.

Main Methods:

• Review of technical developments in digital psychiatry, including digital entities, medical knowledge, autonomous agents, and VR.
• Introduction of clinical mental health issues relevant to digital systems.
• Proposal of a framework for an AI-driven, fully-automated digital psychiatric system.

Main Results:

• Identifies opportunities for practical clinical use through digital entities, medical domain knowledge, autonomous agents, and VR.
• Outlines a system for fully automated mental health practices.
• Discusses challenges and key issues for real-world implementation.

Conclusions:

• Digital psychiatry offers a pathway to automate psychiatric clinical processes for improved efficiency and consistency.
• A fully-automated digital psychiatric system is feasible with current AI technologies.
• Successful implementation requires addressing patient, provider, and regulatory considerations.