GREENVILLE, N.C.--BUSINESS WIRE--eMind Science Corp.'s new mobile health platform, eMindLog®, is helping people take control of their mental wellbeing by empowering quantitative self-measurement of the vital signs of their minds.

“Stress, anxiety and depression are pervasive in today’s world, and they take a heavy toll on our health, productivity and personal relationships,” says Michael Heffernan, president, CEO and cofounder of eMind Science Corp. “We developed eMindLog® as an easy-to-use, secure digital tool for tracking behavioral health, with the option to share results with a healthcare provider for early diagnosis and treatment.”

Using eMindLog® on a smartphone, tablet or laptop computer, patients and other users can accurately and precisely self-measure their stress, anxiety and depression daily and weekly by answering questions about their emotions, thoughts and behaviors. The questions take about three minutes to answer. Algorithms produce scores and graphical indexes for anxiety, anger, sadness and lack of pleasure.

If they choose, users can securely and confidentially share the resulting data with their doctor or therapist through the platform’s graphically rich reporting dashboard. The data can support better-informed diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care beyond the office visit.

"Diagnosing and treating depression and anxiety in the primary care setting has always been difficult, mainly because of time limitations in the office and lack of data over time,” says Fredrick Teixeira, M.D., an internal medicine physician at Vidant Health in Washington, N.C. “This health platform gives us actionable data over whatever time we choose, in a way that makes for more accurate and quicker diagnosis. It also allows for better ways to see if our treatments are successful with a glance of the graphic data."

eMindLog® merges mobile health technology with the latest insights from neuroscience and psychology about how the brain processes daily subjective experiences into the emotions, thoughts and behaviors that largely determine mental wellbeing.

The platform empowers patients and users with knowledge of their own minds and a vocabulary with visual reports that help them express quantitatively how they are feeling. More informed patients lead to better relationships with healthcare providers.

“User data can indicate important mental health trends including potential thresholds for clinical anxiety and depression,” says Philip T. Ninan, M.D., the company’s co-founder, chairman and chief scientific officer. “When the data is shared, it can give healthcare providers a wealth of quantitative information for optimal diagnosis, treatment and monitoring for better health outcomes.”

eMindLog® is free to patients and other individual users, who can establish accounts at www.emindlog.com. The platform includes two other fee-based applications: eMindLog Pro™, a portal connecting healthcare providers with patients, and eMindLog Enterprise™, a version for self-insured employers to offer as part of their benefits and wellness programs.

eMindLog Pro™ is intended not only for primary care physicians and therapists but for specialists treating major accidental injuries or chronic illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Patients in these situations often experience fear, stress and anxiety, leading to depression that can in turn hinder their physical recovery.

Heffernan says the eMindLog® platform can add value to the healthcare system by providing behavioral health data that supports early intervention, reducing emergency care, hospitalization and other treatment costs downstream.

“Our goal for eMindLog® is to engage patients, healthcare providers, employers, healthcare systems and insurers in a robust ecosystem that encourages data-driven behavioral healthcare for better mental wellbeing,” Heffernan says.

eMindLog® is a private, secure, cloud-based system, and only users can see their personalized data, unless they opt to share it. The system is compliant with HIPAA standards and meets current healthcare reporting requirements.

At least 75 million adults in the United States are estimated to have high or extreme stress and/or anxiety or depressive disorders. Untreated mental illness costs the U.S. at least $105 billion in lost productivity each year, according to a Harvard University study.

Mobile-health technology solutions like eMindLog® are a potent antidote because an estimated 3.4 billion people worldwide have smartphones or tablets, and half of them have downloaded health applications, representing an addressable health-app market of $1.5 billion.