Using Technology to Improve Mental Health with Kat Houghton, Co-Founder of ilumivu

In this episode, we are speaking with psychologist and tech founder, Kat Houghton. Kat founded ilumivu to help mental health clinicians and researchers support real-time behavioral interventions. She is a pioneer in using digital tech to disrupt the way mental health is accessed and delivered. Listen in as Andrew, Fahad, and Kat discuss health and tech, data collection, and the good we can do when science and data meet.

Episode Highlights: 

• The need for a service like ilumivu 
• Digital phenotyping - what are they doing with all the data being collected?
• Proactive medicine vs reactive medical intervention
  • Helping upstream before chronic conditions set in
• The leading-edge science in this field is making predictive algorithms as effective and efficient as possible 
• Some of the leading mental health apps don't have scientific evidence behind them 
• FDA regulation in the mental health and tech space
• Measuring meaningful work and productivity 
  • There is always going to be a level of dissatisfaction in work if the work is not meaningful
• Using technology as a tool to build instead of destroy

Resources Mentioned: 

• The Social Dilemma
• Mindstrong
• Headspace
• Digital Therapeutics
• Ray Dalio

Thanks for listening! What did you think about this episode? Drop us a comment and let us know how we're doing.

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About our Guest
Kat is fascinated by the intersection of technology and psychology. She is actively engaged in designing and testing systems to facilitate positive behavior change in a variety of populations. She co-founded ilumivu in 2009 (ilumivu.com) to provide software systems to researchers and clinicians to capture human data and deliver just-in-time interventions. Ilumivu's first software service was for parents of children with autism to track symptom change and treatment use in an online HIPAA compliant, sharable platform. Since then ilumivu has provided web, mobile and wearable systems to researchers and clinicians working with a wide range of populations including substance abuse, suicide, anxiety, and depression. They are committed to finding innovative and effective ways to use everyday technology to improve the daily life experience of the millions of people who suffer from mental health issues.