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Custom Telehealth Software for Mental Health
Sample Architecture, Key Features, and Integrations
In healthcare IT since 2005, ScienceSoft develops custom telehealth software and implements platform-based solutions to help healthcare organizations efficiently deliver remote care.
Telemedicine for Mental Health: the Essence
Telehealth for mental health enables remote interaction between mental health specialists and patients, removing distance barriers, time constraints, and fear of stigma. Patients can book online appointments, including couple, group, and family therapy sessions, reducing the disease exacerbation risk. The availability of remote sessions promotes higher patient satisfaction and retention levels, contributing to better outpatient care.
Custom telepsychiatry software can be especially beneficial for organizations willing to provide patients with personalized, disorder-tailored treatment plans, interactive tools for mental wellness self-monitoring, AI-powered symptom analysis, and more.
Telehealth software for mental health is usually integrated with EHR/EMR, a laboratory information system, and a practice management system to ensure smooth clinical workflows and instant communication.
Sample Architecture of a Telemedicine Solution for Mental Health
A high-level architecture of a telehealth solution for mental care will likely include the following key elements: an admin web panel, a patient app, an app for mental health specialists, a video streaming and messaging server, and a cloud data storage and processing module.
Telemedicine for Mental Health: Key Functionality
Relying on 19 years of experience in the healthcare IT industry, ScienceSoft’s experts outline the most commonly requested features of telemedicine for mental health professionals.
Consultations with mental health specialists
- Selection of a mental health professional for new patients based on their symptoms, preferences, etc.
- Switching to a new mental health specialist in case of change in a patient’s needs or therapy type.
- Booking an online appointment using a built-in calendar.
- Pre-visit mental health questionnaires for mood and cognitive disorder screening, information on habits and lifestyle.
- Audio/video conferencing with mental health care professionals, including group sessions.
- Text and voice messaging.
- Session recordings available to the mental health specialist and the patient.
- Follow-up patient surveys.
Medication and care management
- Creation of custom and template-based treatment plans.
- Giving medication prescriptions and refills within an app.
- In-app access to patient profiles containing medication and treatment plans, lab test results, and more (for doctors and patients).
- Dashboards to monitor the changes in a patient’s health over time (for doctors).
- Comprehensive medication information available to doctors and patients, including drug descriptions and safety profiles, instructions, etc.
Patient self-care
- Condition-specific online assessment checklists for patient self-monitoring.
- Mood, lifestyle, and symptom trackers.
- Medication intake tracker with reminders.
- Personalized educational module containing condition-specific materials.
- Personal therapy goals for patients to independently evaluate their treatment progress.
- Patient peer-to-peer support via moderated forums or in-app messaging (if approved by the therapist).
AI-powered features
- Detection of symptom patterns to identify triggers (e.g., more frequent hallucinations in patients with bipolar disorder caused by the lack of sleep).
- Analysis across patient cases to find dependencies between symptoms, treatments, and outcomes.
- Assessment of a patient’s condition based on the analysis of audio and video recordings.
- Voice recognition for automated note-taking (for specialists).
- Chatbots to suggest relevant educational materials or help patients perform in-app actions (e.g., to schedule an ad hoc therapy session, fill out a questionnaire).
Payment and insurance
- Instant payment processing via the connected payment gateways.
- Support for multiple payment methods (bank transfer, card, web/mobile wallet, etc.).
- Patient eligibility check and insurance verification.
- Access to explanations of benefits.
Patient data security and compliance
- Identity management and multi-factor authentication for patients and specialists in psychiatry.
- End-to-end data encryption (including ePHI, visit recordings, chat messages, user action logs).
- Compliance with HIPAA, HITECH, GDPR, PCI DSS, SAMHSA, 42 CFR Part 2, and other applicable regulatory requirements.
See How It Works in Real Life
Check Out Our Telehealth App Demo
Explore opportunities that a telehealth app provides to foster continuous and impactful communication between patients and healthcare professionals.
Explore a Telehealth App with Remote Patient Monitoring
In the app demo, we show how the automated collection of health parameters, vitals analysis, and identification of symptom patterns contribute to advanced patient care.
Important Integrations for Telepsychiatry Software
Having implemented over 150 successful healthcare projects, ScienceSoft recommends the following key integrations for your telepsychiatry application:
- EHR/EMR system: to provide a mental health specialist with a 360-degree patient view (e.g., information on drug allergies, chronic conditions, past treatments); to log appointments and their results in EHR for billing purposes; to enable ePrescribing features.
- Smart medical devices, including wearables: to collect patients’ vitals (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure) or lifestyle data (e.g., sleep duration and phases) and send them to the telehealth app server for storage, processing, and identification of abnormal values or trends.
- Laboratory information system: to give mental health specialists access to patients’ lab test results and monitor the prescribed medications' side effects.
- Practice management system: to provide in-app access to mental health professionals’ schedules; to implement automation in billing for telemedicine services and streamline accounting.
How to Develop Telepsychiatry Software
Creating telemedicine software specifically tailored for mental health requires careful planning and execution. ScienceSoft adopts a targeted approach to development, ensuring that the solution aligns with the unique needs of mental health practices.
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Needs assessment: analyzing mental health professionals’ specific requirements for remote care; identifying key pain points, challenges, and gaps in the current telepsychiatry landscape; gathering expert and focus group feedback on the popular telepsychiatry solutions; identifying evidence-based therapeutic approaches and assessment tools to integrate into the software.
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Feature set, architecture, and tech stack design: deciding on the functionality, like secure video conferencing and chat messaging, virtual waiting rooms, and tools for mood tracking; choosing the optimal architecture and techs.
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Project planning: devising a comprehensive project plan with detailed deliverables, KPIs, milestones, budget, and timeline.
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UX/UI design: creating an intuitive and accessible interface for mental health professionals and patients; refining the UX/UI design based on the iterative usability testing results and user feedback.
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Telepsychiatry software development: building the solution’s front end and back end with a focus on mental health data security alongside regulatory compliance (e.g., with HIPAA, FDA/CE, CFR 42 Part 2, SAMHSA guidelines).
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Integration with healthcare systems, mental health tools, and wearables: EHR/EMR, EEG headsets, heart rate monitors, sleep trackers, etc.
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Testing and quality assurance: validating the software against specific scenarios to guarantee its reliability, ease of use, proper functioning, and seamless integrations.
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Release into the relevant healthcare infrastructure.
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Ongoing support and evolution: providing regular software updates to align with evolving mental health regulations and emerging telemedicine trends.
Key Factors of a Telepsychiatry App Success
In 2022, 39% of all mental health visits in America were virtual. ScienceSoft’s experts identified the following factors of the successful telepsychiatry software adoption:
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Cross-platform compatibility and mobile optimization: to ensure smooth app access and use on various devices (Android or iOS smartphones, tablets, laptops, PCs) regardless of the screen resolution. |
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99%+ app availability, high performance, and stability. |
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User-friendly UX and UI with enhanced accessibility: to make navigation in the app convenient and easy for doctors and patients of any technical proficiency; to make sure the app is suitable for users regardless of their individual abilities (e.g., speech recognition for patients with visual or fine motor skills impairments, a colorblind mode). |
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Gamification: to sustain patients’ motivation (e.g., points and badges in the Goal section to record and track treatment progress). |
Investments and ROI
The development costs of a custom telepsychiatry solution with virtual consultation capabilities only may vary from $150,000 to $250,000. The price may increase to a range of $250,000-$400,000 when the functionality includes remote patient monitoring. The cost of end-to-end mental health patient engagement software that covers all of the above as well as long-term care and care coordination ranges between $400,000 and $1,000,000.
Want to understand the cost of your telemedicine app for mental health?
Learn more about telemedicine software development cost factors and ROI.
Key financial benefits of mental telehealth software
Solutions for telemedicine in psychiatry generally reach 100% ROI in about 6 months.
Up to a 67% reduction
in clinical staffing and overhead expenses.
Reduced spending on repeated tests
due to well-established information exchange between a provider and a patient.
Off-the-Shelf vs. Custom Telemedicine Software for Mental Health
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athena Telehealth |
Amwell |
Doxy.me |
Custom telehealth software for mental health ScienceSoft’s choice |
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Basic telehealth capabilities
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Audiovisual consultations, treatment plan creation, medication prescription and refill. |
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General medical functionality
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Patient vitals tracking; AI-driven diagnostics, analysis across patient cases to find dependencies, voice recognition for medical note-taking; patient progress dashboards. |
Limited. Vitals tracking only. |
Limited. Vitals tracking; AI-powered patient engagement tools, voice recognition, and a real-time early warning score system. |
Limited. Vitals tracking only. |
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Specialized mental health functionality
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Mental disorder-specific treatment plans and pre-visit screening questionnaires; self-care features for patients; mental disorder symptom analysis and trigger pattern identification. |
Limited. Treatment plans with specialized behavioral health templates only. |
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Integrations
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Via API: with EHRs, wearables, popular connected devices (e.g., wireless scales). |
Via API: EHRs (Epic, Cerner, Allscripts, etc.), smart medical devices. |
Via API: with EHRs. |
Seamless connection to any required custom and platform-based solutions, including legacy software and smart devices. |
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Payment and insurance
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Verifying healthcare insurance or using payment gateways to pay for medical services. |
A broad suite of built-in billing tools. Easy payment collection. Medicare, Medicaid, private, and self-funded insurance coverage of medical services. |
Extensive payment collection capabilities. Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance reimbursements. |
Self-payments. Private insurance reimbursements for states (29) with telemedicine parity laws only. Limited Medicare and Medicaid coverage. |
All possible insurance reimbursements, including self-payments. |
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Security
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Based on ScienceSoft’s expert assessment. Main criteria: software deployment type and cloud type (public, private, hybrid); basic cybersecurity mechanisms (end-to-end data encryption, role-based access control, MFA); advanced data protection capabilities (e.g., AI-powered fraud detection); compliance with global security standards. |
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Regulatory compliance
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With relevant industry-specific, global, and local standards and regulations. |
Compliance with HIPAA, HITECH/ARRA, ACA, ONC, HITRUST, PCI-DSS, HISP, EPCS. |
Compliance with HIPAA, GDPR. |
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Platform availability
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Web. |
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Ease of use
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Based on ScienceSoft’s expert assessment. Main criteria: UX and UI complexity, convenience, and customization options; accessibility; learning curve. |
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Pricing
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For 100 users/year. |
Additional fees: initial setup costs + customization and integration costs. |
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Unlimited number of users. No additional fees. |
Should You Opt for a Custom Telepsychiatry Software?
Answer six quick questions to determine if a custom solution or an off-the-shelf telehealth platform is the best fit for you.
Do you want to introduce SaMD functionality to the app and leverage advanced features? E.g., AI-powered symptom patterns analysis and trigger identification for patient condition management.
Are you going to add in-app treatment plans, including proprietary ones (e.g., interpersonal psychotherapy for binge eating disorder)?
Do you need to integrate the app with other third-party software or your legacy systems?
Are you looking for patient-centric, highly accessible UI/UX design?
Do you operate in multiple states or regions and must comply with a variety of specific regulations?
Is it important for you to get an optimized app that operates equally well on different platforms (e.g., mobile, tablet, laptop, desktop) or outdated hardware?
Tell us more about your needs
Please answer at least one question to help us better understand your business objectives.
A custom telepsychiatry app is the best option for you
It seems you can benefit from a custom telemedicine app for mental health. ScienceSoft’s experts will gladly help you elicit the software requirements, design a robust architecture, or develop a full-fledged solution.
You can opt for a ready-made telepsychiatry app
It looks like an off-the-shelf solution will work just fine for your initiative. If you’d like to get professional advice on how to choose and implement the app that will work best for you, just drop us a line.
Success Story by ScienceSoft
MVP Development of an iOS Telemedicine App for Mental Health
ScienceSoft developed a HIPAA-compliant telemedicine application for a US team of seasoned behavioral specialists. The fully functional MVP enabling appointment scheduling, patient-therapist communication, condition self-management, and in-app payments was released within 4 months.
Consider Our Professional Services
Knowing all the ins and outs of healthcare software development and IT consulting, ScienceSoft designs and builds top-notch telemedicine solutions for mental healthcare providers.
Telemedicine for mental health consulting
Our Doctor of Medicine consultants and domain-proficient software engineers will help you plan and carry out your telemedicine initiative with minimized risks and maximized payback. Turn to us for business analysis and cost estimation, software design, and regulatory compliance guidance.
Telemedicine for mental health implementation
With a team of 750+ IT professionals on board, ScienceSoft is ready to take over the entire project, from software design to deployment and support. You get a high-performing, secure, and fully compliant solution that will receive appreciation from both your patients and the medical staff.
ScienceSoft’s Clients Say
Todd Nilson
MD
We worked with ScienceSoft on the refactoring and modernization of our telehealth web portal and a cross-platform patient application. During the project, we were impressed by their code analysis proficiency and in-depth knowledge of telemedicine specifics. We are thankful for the meticulous and value-driven approach of ScienceSoft’s team. They created comprehensive project documentation, feature lists, and worked out thorough recommendations to help us improve the stability and performance of our solution. ScienceSoft proved to be a reliable vendor with a solid healthcare background.
I’ve had six orthopedic surgeries since playing college football and tried every major digital exercise therapy platform on the market. None of them offer the comprehensive and personalized care they claim. Thanks to ScienceSoft’s practical healthcare IT expertise, we created a musculoskeletal therapy platform that can be fully customized and reflect the needs of each program member. I am excited to see AKLOS Health change the approach to physiotherapy and offer each member a truly bespoke experience that’s based in science.
We engaged ScienceSoft to build an Android telehealth app that complements our web-based platform for our patients. They advised and successfully led the way from end to end through the technical challenges and considerations with the development of the app. We have also engaged them to introduce a few enhancements to the app and would certainly consider ScienceSoft as a technology partner in further software development initiatives.
What makes ScienceSoft different
We achieve project success no matter what
ScienceSoft does not pass mere project administration off as project management, which, unfortunately, often happens on the market. We practice real project management, achieving project success for our clients no matter what.
About ScienceSoft
ScienceSoft is a US-headquartered international IT consulting and software development company with 9 years of experience in delivering telemedicine solutions. Being ISO 9001, ISO 27001, and ISO 13485 certified, we help provide high-quality psychiatry telehealth services to digitalize patient care and improve retention.