NIMH Awards Lyssn First of Its Kind Grant to Support Improved Quality Assurance for 988 and Crisis Care
Multi-year collaboration with Protocall Services will dramatically reduce burdens of meeting 988 fidelity monitoring requirements and enable scaling of suicide risk and safety assessments.
May 18, 2023 – Seattle, WA. Lyssn.io, a Seattle-based, AI powered behavioral health and human services technology company, today announced a $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) in collaboration with Portland-based Protocall Services, a national provider of crisis response and suicide preventions services, including 988. The grant will enable Lyssn and Protocall to further enhance and validate the first-ever, AI-enabled quality assurance solution for crisis care through customization of Lyssn’s peer-vetted proprietary LyssnAI quality assurance platform.
The project will focus on empathic suicide risk assessment and safety planning. Research from 2007 reported that crisis line call-takers in that study assessed suicide risk in only approximately 50% of inbound calls, whereas the current standard of care and 988 best practices guidelines recommend assessment in 100% of calls. By laying a foundation for high-quality QA, supervision, and training throughout the 988 system, this project will improve quality and could save countless lives.
Suicide rates have increased more than 30% over the last 20 years and death by suicide is now the second leading cause of death among teens and young adults. 988 is a new nationwide crisis care line that within a year of its release has already fielded more than 4 million calls, a twofold increase from the year prior. Based on current projections, there could be 12 to 15 million 988 crisis contacts per year within the next several years.
Lyssn’s founders pioneered the application of AI to behavioral health conversations, providing immediate feedback to trainees, counselors, supervisors, and quality assurance managers on crucial counseling elements. These include provider empathy and the quality of cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing, along with clinical documentation services. Lyssn’s technology has been validated in 60+ peer-reviewed publications over the past 15 years.
“Lyssn is excited to lead this newly funded, multi-year grant from NIMH, expanding on our long term, valued partnership with Protocall Services,” said Dr. David Atkins, Lyssn Co-Founder and CEO. “The growing demand and need for high-quality crisis services is staggering. The grant will enable us to expand on Lyssn’s existing and validated AI for suicide prevention, and rigorously evaluate its effectiveness with Protocall’s crisis services. The project is a great example of Lyssn’s mission to use AI to enhance behavioral healthcare providers and their work Protocall to improve outcomes for the millions of folks reaching out for help.”
“Federal, state, and local governments are investing billions of dollars to increase access to evidence-based crisis counseling services, but until recently we had limited technical ability to accurately measure the quality of that care. For that reason, NIMH identified a pressing public health need: to better measure at scale what is happening within crisis calls,” said Brad Pendergraft, LCSW, and Chief Clinical Officer at Protocall. “Previously, doing so was an aspirational goal because there just were not any trusted tools to evaluate the quality of crisis counseling at scale. With the development of LyssnAI and the potential to further refine its already proven capabilities, we will, our people will be better equipped to quickly and accurately assess how these practices are being delivered in crisis calls and texts. Providing counselors with this crucial feedback creates an opportunity for them to refine and sharpen their skills, providing the best possible support resources,” Mr. Pendergraft said.
“As a part of refining and testing Lyssn’s platform, we will also explore ways to ensure the AI is sensitive to diversity and cultural differences,” said Dr. Zac Imel – Lyssn Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer. “Protocall serves a diverse clientele with an equally diverse community of call-takers. It’s so important that Lyssn’s AI algorithms continue to advance in a way that reflects and honors all providers and clients across the spectrum. Partnering with Protocall to do just that is a step toward that kind of inclusion.”
About Lyssn.io, Inc.
Lyssn created and scaled the only AI and natural language processing platform that uses the same gold-standard evaluation tools trusted by experts in academia and healthcare to deliver real-time feedback that accelerates positive outcomes in the behavioral health, coaching and human services sectors. With always-on quality improvement and intuitive, on-demand training, Lyssn supports and documents the use of evidence-based practices while improving service quality. Rooted in over a decade of scientific inquiry, Lyssn’s technology has been validated in over 60 peer-reviewed academic publications, and is in use across clinical, social services, academic, and population health settings across the US and in the UK. Lyssn represents the new standard of practice in health and human services. For more information, visit www.lyssn.io. And follow Lyssn on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @lyssn.io.
About Protocall Services:
Protocall Services, Inc., (“Protocall”) was founded in 1997 and provides 24/7 access to crisis services for more than 500 employee assistance programs, community mental health clinics, telehealth providers, colleges / universities, and managed behavioral health organizations. They are also a SAMHSA-contracted national backup provider for 988 and the primary 988 line for the State of New Mexico. Protocall responds to more than 600,000 calls annually with robust growth expected given the current roll-out and scaling up of 988 services.
MEDIA CONTACT / INTERVIEW REQUESTS:
Jeremy Tunis
(301) 404-0764
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