Mental health providers often share with us the following goals: reducing psychiatric rehospitalization rates, increasing client appointment adherence, and assessing client satisfaction.
Without automation, meeting these goals often relies on staff making repeated outreach phone calls and deploying surveys via email. During times of crisis or instability, it’s common for staff to report that outreach attempts are deprioritized.
We partnered with Ventura County to provide SMS surveys at regular intervals to assess mood and wellbeing. Respondents with consistently low mood ratings were offered to connect with a mental health professional. Appointment reminders, wellness tips, resources and links were all provided via SMS to clients as well as their designated support person.
Clients were enrolled via various methods (paper forms, online forms, SMS opt-in), and auto-escalation alerts were set up for any ‘crisis’ words that indicated self-harm or other more urgent matters.
The results of this program were measured as follows:
Client Satisfaction
- 73% said they would Recommend the SMS Service
- 76% said Service was Very Helpful or Helpful to their Mental Health Recovery
- 94% Program Retention Rate (only 6% opted out)
- Averaged 72 Interactions per Client
Youth Focus Group
- 100% said they would Recommend the SMS Service
- 75% said Service was Very Helpful or Helpful to their Mental Health Recovery
We love to see program participants who rate an SMS-based service as highly as this, but we also love to see how automated SMS messages saved Ventura County staff from having to chase down clients by making repeated outbound phone attempts. Wins all around.
Interested in an automated, SMS-based solution that connects clients to support when they need it most? We can help! Contact Us.