MeChat

Our team

Inspiration

The goal is to help bridge gaps within mental health treatment. Mental health care can be improved by integrating artificial intelligence in self-directed virtual cognitive behavioral therapy or positive self talk, allowing anyone a form of on demand access. Infant brains require regular stimulation. This type of attention is usually given by caregivers but if it is not received, the neurons in that child's brain may not grow properly. Partnered with this information, we wanted to target a demographic that usually doesn't have ready access to therapy in order to encourage health habits and brain development.

What it does

Establishes a permanent safe channel to express the emotions the person is experiencing, based on the emotion detection technology, it catalogs user response under emotional categories. If user responses become suicidal or "too intense" MeChat enters into a "walkie-talkie" mode with the nurse/health professional to help diffuse the situation, otherwise it allows the user to interact with a chatbot via speech.

How we built it

This mode of care uses Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a short-term form of psychotherapy treatment that utilizes hands-on, practical approaches to problem-solving. MeChat was designed with the goal to change patterns of thinking or behavior that are behind people’s difficulties, and so change the way they feel. We used IBM Watson, Swift, Xcode, and Firebase to create our application,.

Challenges we ran into

When designing the app we realized our scope could be a lot bigger. MeChat was initially intended to target migrant children who have been separated from their parents and have been placed in foster care but we realized such an application could be scaled to help almost anyone old enough to interact with a smartphone.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The app focuses on empowering and encouraging users to apply good coping skills and their ability to take control of their own mental health. Sort of like a self-help book without the reading. We are proud of MeChat!

What we learned

The healthcare gap that we attempted to address is a huge one that couldn't be completely solved in 36 hours. Here are some reasons why:

35% of adults with serious mental illnesses are not receiving mental health treatment.
Utilization of mental health services is relatively low among Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics, weighing in at less than 15% utilization on average.
Cost is the most commonly reported barrier to using mental health services.
The annual average percentage of adults with any mental illness who had an unmet need for services by reason is 50% cost, 30% prejudice, and 25% low perceived need.
Spending on mental illness treatment accounts for $89 BILLION of total health spending
Rates of anxiety and depression have skyrocketed in college students, with 57% of women and 40% of men reported experiencing episodes of ‘overwhelming anxiety’ in the past year.

With our Mobile app: you don’t need a psychologist, you avoid the stigma around seeking mental health help, have a resource outside of psychologist or in between therapy sessions, and are allowed to grow (learn to deal with your problems internally). MeChat can be used as a stress reliever, like meditation for casual users.

What's next for MeChat

We plan to cover mostly all the different age ranges, integrate appropriate responses for diverse populations, strengthen the bound between caregivers and children/users. We want to improve the protocols, involving the existent policies and create an impact to improve them. We also want to improve the technological tools used, to integrate an adequate and more reliable back end and enrich the user experience through the use of AI and VR friendly interface for each emotional category.