Developed by a Carle Illinois College of Medicine (CI MED) student, an emergent technology platform known as LAMP (Learn, Assess, Manage, Prevent) is showing promise in taking modern psychiatric care to the next level, beyond clinics or hospitals. The LAMP Platform aggregates patient data from mobile and wearable technologies, as well as a slew of mental and physical health-oriented applications. Also in the mix are cognitive games, such as those ingrained in the LAMP system itself. The machine-learning algorithms of the system then comb through the data to track an individual’s mental wellness over time.
Indeed, the platform was the brainchild of first-year student—and, more importantly, lead architect—Aditya Vaidyam, who was helped by a Harvard-based team. “This kind of clinical model can really change the depth of care delivered to individual patients, but also allow a psychiatric care team to work with many more patients, too,” said Vaidyam. “It’s a healthcare delivery and resource allocation puzzle that we’re trying to solve with this model, and the end goal is increased access to quality care. Better care for more people.”
LAMP, still a free, open-source program, has been readily accepted by the U.S. research community, and has already made its fair share of international forays as well. Vaidyam indicated that the broad range of data collected will be leveraged to get a handle on “what clinical care in psychiatry looks like for the next decade and beyond.” While the system is fully compliant with the often-stringent health information standards of the U.S., the level of variation in commercially available mental health apps and the resulting data-sharing woes of users prompted Vaidyam and the team to sculpt out a convenient database fitted with a peer-based systematic review-like rating model to help decision making.
