
Delivering the next generation of digital mental healthcare
Eight Billion Minds is a new digital therapeutics program from Ieso Digital Health with a vision to remove barriers to mental healthcare for millions of people around the world by delivering efficacious and regulated digital therapeutics for prescription use.
experience at least 1 diagnosable mental health problem in any year (1).
expected global cost 2010-2030 as a result of inaction to mental illness (2).
of real-world data from Ieso’s internet-enabled CBT platform (3).
By applying deep learning and clinical data science to hundreds of thousands of hours of real-world therapy data, Eight Billion Minds is determining what really works to help patients get better. Eight Billion Minds is developing new technology to deliver accessible and personalised psychological therapy on a global scale.
News & Views

Science & Data
Data-driven insights into effective therapy
How can new technology accelerate the development and delivery of digital therapeutics for mental health conditions?
Due to a global scarcity of therapists, the 1:1 therapy model faces limitations, with millions of people worldwide unable to access mental health treatment. Care quality and patient outcomes are often left unmeasured, with the therapy being delivered only as good as the individual therapist delivering the care.
Eight Billion Minds is addressing these issues and changing the future of how therapy is delivered around the world by using deep learning and data science, applied to its own unique data set, to understand what aspects of therapy really work.
So how do we do this?
1: Capture large volumes of therapy data from Ieso’s internet-enabled cognitive behavioural therapy (ie-CBT) service platform.
2: Apply deep learning, natural language processing (NLP) and clinical science to gain understanding of therapy-related language and what aspects of psychotherapy are most effective, for better targeted interventions.
3: By learning what works in real-world clinical settings, create new clinically engaging and effective digital therapeutics models to address unmet mental health needs which are scalable and autonomous.
4: Share new knowledge to services and clinicians to improve engagement and efficacy of traditional therapy.
Eight Billion Minds is the only company with the data to show which components of therapy are most effective for different types of patient. By learning from the best therapists, Ieso has the ability to improve recovery rates with its ie-CBT tool, and is now taking these learnings to develop scalable digital treatments within Eight Billion Minds to remove barriers to quality mental healthcare globally.


How we use patient data for research
As the use of real world data grows, so does the ethical responsibility of those accessing and using it. We take seriously our responsibility to look after the data of our patients and clinicians, and have robust processes in place to safeguard their privacy, and to ensure data security. We also believe that it is our responsibility to make purposeful use of de-identified data in the pursuit of new and better treatments in the future. Our researchers work in close collaboration with clinician focus groups and a consumer advisory group to ensure the work that we are doing is always meaningful. You can watch a short video about how we use data here.
The Eight Billion Minds research programme uses de-identified treatment data from Ieso Digital Health’s ‘Thinkwell’ Platform. Patients signing up for treatment with the Thinkwell service receive the information here about how we use their data as part of the registration process. When patients sign up for treatment, we gather the information necessary to meet NHS quality oversight requirements (see IAPT minimum data set) and in order to conduct the important research of the Eight Billion Minds programme and other research to understand what works in CBT and further improve treatment, recovery rates and access.
We believe in transparency. We report outcomes for every patient we treat to NHS Digital, who make these statistics publicly available, and we routinely publish our findings in scientific journals. Our research publications report statistics, patterns, and conclusions – never individual treatments or conditions.
You can read Ieso’s full privacy policy here.
Team
Passionate about improving access to mental health therapy
Publications
Deep learning study reveals psychotherapy features related to patient improvement
Ieso Digital Health applies deep learning to large-scale clinical data to understand what aspects of psychotherapy content are associated with clinical outcomes. This study demonstrates the potential of what can be learnt when using real-world data and what could be achieved when these methods are applied to improve clinical practice and create digital therapeutics. The paper, ‘Quantifying the association between psychotherapy content and clinical outcomes using deep learning’, is published in JAMA Psychiatry, a peer-reviewed and highly-cited journal globally with more than 4.8 million article views and downloads annually.
Contact
Get in touch to find out more.

Address
The Jeffreys Building
Cowley Road
Cambridge
Cambridgeshire
CB4 0DS
UK

Phone
Alternatively, give us a call to chat directly to a representative.
+44 (0) 1223 608 760
Privacy: This site does not collect personal data, but to understand how we process personal information when you respond to this information via email, see the Ieso Privacy Notices here.
- Global Mental Health Commission
- Global Health Observatory Data Repository
- Ieso Digital Health dataset. Ieso applies organisational measures to ensure appropriate security and confidentiality of data, and provides transparency via the privacy notices.
- World Health Organization Fact Sheet on Depression