Using Mental Health Telemetry to Predict Relapse and Re-hospitalization in Mood Disorders

Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) focuses on using data collected from subjects living their daily lives in their natural environments using minimally invasive techniques to improve the quality of the data collected. MHT is an evolution of EMA. MHT was developed at Sunnybrook in partnership with the University of Toronto; it uses cell phones to collect self-report data on symptoms of illness and then transmit it in real-time to a central database. Principal advantages of MHT over EMA include the ability to time- and date-stamp data, thus eliminating retrospective record completion, and the ability to observe and monitor data flow in real-time, without having to wait for participants to upload or deliver the data (e.g., at their next doctors' appointment).