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CHESS Health Adds Evidence-based Digital Therapy to its Addiction Management Platform

ByCHESS Health

Establishes Exclusive Partnership with CBT4CBT

CHESS Health, the leading provider of addiction management technology, will add CBT4CBT, a digital delivery of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) specific for substance use disorder, to its comprehensive ACHESS platform for patients and families, their care teams, providers and payers.

“The underlying philosophy of CHESS is that technology, especially in the hands of patients, must be part of a multi-faceted approach to the treatment of substance use disorder,” says Hans Morefield, chief executive officer of CHESS Health. “We are delighted to add evidenced-based
CBT4CBT to our platform, as it teaches those in treatment, primarily through engaging videos and quizzes, valuable skills to successfully address the real-life challenges they face, as they navigate their treatment and recovery journey.”

CBT4CBT (Computer-Based Training for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is the work of Kathleen Carroll, PhD, the Albert E. Kent Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University, with the support of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Recent studies have demonstrated CBT4CBT’s efficacy and safety as a stand-alone treatment, delivered with minimal clinical monitoring. In a study published online in the American Journal of Psychiatry, use of the CBT4CBT program by a treatment group showed they were more likely to complete treatment and use less drugs and alcohol than if they had undergone standard therapy. This study also demonstrated reduced drug use, even six months after CBT4CBT treatment had ended. Over the past decade, CBT4CBT has also been validated in multiple randomized clinical trials to be effective as an adjunct to standard outpatient treatment for increasing retention in treatment programs and for reducing drug use, even 6 months following the end of treatment. Computer-based access provides an important means of making CBT, an empirically validated treatment, more broadly affordable and available.

“Improving the treatment of addiction to drugs and alcohol has been the focus of my work. What is more clear to me than ever is the role technology must play in the transformation of treatment,” says Carroll. “We’re excited to be partnering with CHESS Health to get CBT4CBT into the hands of more of those who struggle with the disease.”

Carroll will be presenting the results of a recent feasibility trial of her newest program, CBT4CBT for Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT), at the AMERSA Conference in San Francisco in October. The integration of CBT4CBT into the A-CHESS platform, and into its Connections App for patients, is the successful culmination of a CHESS quest to find a cost-effective digital therapy solution with the strongest track record of validated results. The A-CHESS platform now offers health plans, governments, and providers a comprehensive path to get more individuals into treatment, help those individuals succeed in treatment and recovery, coordinate the efforts of the care continuum, and support families, with analytics to measure outcomes and identify best practices.

About CHESS Health

CHESS Health creates innovative solutions designed at the intersection of science, technology and recovery. Founded by substance abuse researcher Dr. Dave Gustafson of the University of Wisconsin, the company offers A-CHESS, a platform for addiction management focused on increasing the number of individuals in treatment, reducing the relapse rate of those in treatment, and supporting long-term, successful recovery. To learn more about CHESS Health and the A-CHESS platform, visit www.chess.health.

About CBT4CBT, LLC

For more information about CBT4CBT, visit http://www.cbt4cbt.com.