How should we address mental health in the workplace? This is an age-old question that doesn’t have a clear-cut answer. Blackbird Health is one of several Pittsburgh-based tech companies currently working on products to address mental health. Here's a look at the technology the company is developing.
Blackbird Health, which has an office in Lawrenceville, provides a range of mental health and developmental support for children, adolescents and young adults from ages 2 to 26. The most common diagnoses the company sees are autism, anxiety, depression, OCD and ADHD.
Yet, over the 10 years the clinic has been around, the company’s leadership has come to realize how difficult it is to diagnose and treat neurodivergent youths using just the DSM-5, a common tool used to classify mental disorders. So, they set out to find a way to better diagnose and treat not only the symptoms, but also the individuals themselves.
The company has raised $17 million in Series A funding to help pay for their technology-supported mental health model. Define Ventures raised the Series A funding with participation from Frist Cressey Ventures and GreyMatter.
Through advanced technology such as exclusive computational models and machine-learning algorithms, Blackbird Health has gathered over 50 million data points.
“We’re using data to uncover patterns of similar features that lead into what we call ‘subtypes of individuals’ that sit below the diagnosis. The best way I can describe subtype is what we call ‘biotypes’,” CEO Tom Peterson said. Blackbird Biotypes are grouped together individuals with similar symptoms.
In treatment, the company uses an “understand first” method, which eliminates the trial and error of it all. It analyzes what is going on with all the cognitive, behavioral, genetic and developmental factors first through an initial assessment to figure out an individualized treatment plan.
According to Peterson, though extensive outcome analysis, the company has demonstrated that 85% of the kids in its care over the past 10 years have received a clinically significant improvement in both depression and anxiety within around 10 weeks.
The company provides a range of services, including comprehensive assessments, developmental and autism assessments, speech and language evaluations, sensory motor occupational therapy evaluations, ADHD evaluations, psychological evaluations and more. Blackbird Health has specialized therapists, psychiatrists and nurse practitioners who help provide these services.
“If your family is struggling with a child with depression, intense loneliness, self-harm or an eating disorder, it is a tremendous drain on the family. We provide that support for the family and do that coordination for them,” Peterson said.
The company has 85 employees as part of either its clinic or its management services organization.
