The CAT-MH®
The CAT-MH® is a suite of measures validated for depression, anxiety, mania/hypomania, substance use disorder, psychosis, PTSD, social determinants of health, adult ADHD, and suicidality.
LEARN MORESEE JOURNEY MAPThe K-CAT®
Our children’s version of the CAT-MH® has been validated for youth ages 7 to 17. The K-CAT® includes self-rated and parent/caregiver-rated modules for: depression, anxiety, mania/hypomania, ADHD, SUD, conduct disorder, ODD, PTSD, and suicidality.
LEARN MORETake our interactive quiz to learn how your organization can be empowered by our tools!
Mental Health Measurement, Unrivaled
In an average of 2 minutes per module, patients can be screened for anxiety, depression, substance use disorder, psychosis, suicidality, PTSD, social determinants of health, adult ADHD, and mania/hypomania, with precision equal to what would have taken hours to achieve with traditional fixed length tests. This process can be further streamlined by integrating with our API.
1
CREATE A TAILORED ASSESSMENT
Select the modules you’d like to administer to your patient and have the assessment sent directly to the patient’s mobile phone number or email address.
2
COMPLETE THE ASSESSMENT
The patient completes the assessment, and a completion notification is immediately sent to the clinician.
3
VIEW THE RESULTS
The results are immediately available for review by the clinician. These results can be exported, printed, or integrated directly to the Electronic Health Record.
Applications of the CAT-MH®
Large-scale screening and monitoring of depression and anxiety in integrated primary care and behavioral health care settings is a natural application of this work and is already in practice in several major institutions. Below are just a handful of the current and potential applications of this technology.
FOLLOW US ON LINKEDIN!POPULATION SCREENING
The CAT-MH® is being used as a 1st stage diagnostic screener in the largest national survey of mental health and substance use disorders in history, conducted by SAMHSA and implemented by RTI.
HOSPITAL SYSTEMS
The University of Chicago completed a CAT-MH® study of 1,000 patients in the emergency department (ED) who came in for a non-psychiatric indication. They were screened for depression using the CAD-MDD, measured for depression severity using the CAT-DI and suicide risk.
STATE ENTITIES
The CAT-MH® is being used for
state-wide assessment of mental health disorders in the child welfare system where hundreds of caseworkers have been trained in its use.
RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
High-frequency monitoring, even hourly in response to fast-acting new psychiatric treatments (e.g. ketamine and deep brain
stimulation) are now possible because the same items are not repeatedly administered to the same patient.
UNIVERSITY SYSTEMS
We have contributed to a large-scale university student screening and monitoring system to screen, triage and provide measurement-based care to college students remotely in real time and to determine which students need more intensive treatment.
INSURERS
Insurers can now monitor the progress of patients through treatment without the patient needing to be in the clinic for testing.
Introducing the CASSY!
The CASSY is the first universal screen for suicide risk in pediatric emergency departments or anywhere large-scale suicide risk screening occurs. The 72-question item bank covers suicidal ideation and behavior, and suicide related items drawn from the domains of psychopathology, PTSD, social adjustment, sleep, substance use, anger, and aggression.
LEARN MOREOverview of Our Tools
The CAT-MH® and K-CAT® utilize computerized adaptive testing where different individuals may receive different symptom items which adaptively target their specific impairment level. This allows for the first ever, true measurement of complex mental and behavioral health disorders.
VIEW WEBINARSGROUNDED IN STATISTICS
Our tools are based on multi-dimensional item response theory (MIRT). Based on MIRT procedures, estimates of items (e.g., difficulty, discrimination) and individuals (e.g., severity of depression) can be obtained to more efficiently identify suitable item subsets for each individual. MIRT weighs more severe items more heavily than less severe items in deriving a test score.
LANGUAGES
The CAT-MH® is available in English, Spanish, and Chinese. The K-CAT® is available in English and Spanish. Both the CAT-MH® and K-CAT® have built-in selectable audio to aid in literacy issues and further ease of use.
LARGE ITEM BANK
The CAT-MH® adaptively selects a small optimal set of items from a large bank of approximately 1,500 items and the K-CAT® has a separate item bank of 2,120 items. Instead of fixing the items and allowing the precision of measurement to vary, we fix the precision of measurement and allow the items to vary. The result is a dramatic increase in the precision of measurement with a dramatic decrease in the burden of measurement for the patient and the complete elimination of clinician burden.
VALIDATED MEASURES
The CAT-MH® and K-CAT® have been validated against structured clinical diagnostic interviews (e.g., SCID-DSM-5) so it can provide diagnostic profiles for a large number of disorders and suicide risk. They are the only suites of mental health measures that have been fully validated against structured clinical interviews.
CAT-MH MODULESK-CAT MODULESAPI INTEGRATION
The CAT-MH® and K-CAT® can be leveraged via API for integration into Electronic Health Records. We have fully integrated the CAT-MH® into the Epic EHR at the University of Chicago and developed clinical workflows designed around the integration. For example, the CAT-MH® identified 22% of patients with MDD, 7% at a severity level in need of immediate treatment, and 3% with serious suicide risk. None of these patients were identified by ED clinicians. These patients had significant increases in ED visits and hospitalizations (doubling of the rate) in the year following their ED. None of thse patients had a psychiatric diagnosis.
INTEGRATION SOLUTIONSREMOTE-FRIENDLY
The CAT-MH® and K-CAT® are cloud-based and can be administered on any internet-capable device (smartphone, tablet, notebook, or computer). Our tools are scalable to any size population via a HIPAA secure Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform.
Is your organization looking to provide remote measurement-based care?
Because our tools are cloud-based, they can be administered on any internet-capable device via the patient’s mobile phone number or email address. Organizations are increasingly utilizing our tools for digitally-enabled triage. Contact us to find out more.
CONTACT US
CAT-MH® and K-CAT® in the News
CAT-MH® and K-CAT® in the news including videos, news articles, and academic publications. Check it out!
MORE NEWSPragmatic Clinical Trial of Population Health, Portal-Based Depression Screening: the PORTAL-Depression Study
“We found a population health approach to depression screening with the CAT-MH® led to a higher screening rate and 2.5-fold increase in identification of moderate-to-severe depression compared to visit-based screening. This evidence suggests incorporating population health approaches with quality measure recommendations may improve depression case identification in primary care.”
learn moreExpanded screening tool could improve substance use disorder diagnosis, treatment
“Researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine have expanded a screening tool that could lead to more accurate and timely diagnoses — and therefore treatment — of substance use disorder. […] Researchers said the computer adaptive test is not only brief but has the best psychometric properties of any substance use disorder assessment available today.”
learn moreResearchers from the Veteran’s Health Administration, Academia, and Adaptive Testing Technologies Validate the Computerized Adaptive Test Suicide Scale (CAT-SS) for U.S. Military Veterans
“A promising new research study published today in the Public Library of Science (PLOS) ONE demonstrates that a newly developed computerized adaptive assessment for suicide risk severity can be used among military veterans to accurately predict suicidal outcomes at baseline and at 6- and 12-month marks.”
learn moreMental Health News
Our team regularly publishes original content highlighting success stories, unique use cases, research studies involving our tools, and more!
Catching up with CAT-MH® at Niles PD
Police officers often face significant mental health challenges due to the high-stress nature of their career. They regularly encounter traumatic events, violence, and life-threatening situations, which can lead to chronic[…]
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Improving Police Officer Mental Health with the CAT-MH®
Tony Bertram was a police officer for fifteen years before transitioning into a Licensed Clinical Social Worker at the Niles Police Department. During his time as an officer, he saw[…]
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Protecting Firefighter Mental Health with the CAT-MH®
A firefighter’s job is rarely easy: from risking their lives to save people or infrastructure and working to keep the public safe, firefighters also routinely engage with death, dying, and[…]
Read moreWe’ve partnered with Psych Hub™
Psych Hub™ provides engaging, best-in-class mental health resources. Click the link below to watch a few videos for healthcare providers.
CHECK THEM OUT!