Research Center

Transforming treatment and understanding of mental health through research

A private not-for-profit provider of behavioral health services, Rogers Behavioral Health is nationally recognized for specialized psychiatry and addiction services.

Rogers Research Center builds on more than a century of experience in evidence-based clinical practice. Rogers has been collecting data on patient outcomes using gold standard self-assessments for more than 20 years. Now under the leadership of Kelly Piacsek, PhD, who will oversee research strategy and programming, Rogers has committed to taking research to a new level in order to accelerate our learning and deliver innovations to the field to improve effectiveness of mental health practices. The Rogers Research Center will pursue clinically relevant, high-quality research to answer questions and pursue advancements that will help us realize a future where mental illness can be predicted and prevented, treatment is readily accessible to all who need it, and it takes fewer days of treatment to achieve sustainable recovery.

The importance of research

Tens of millions of people are impacted by mental illness and addiction each year, and the numbers are rising.  Sadly, more than half of people suffering from mental illness don’t receive treatment, or initial treatments are ineffective.  While Rogers has consistently demonstrated patient outcomes that exceed national averages, our providers and leaders want more for our patients.

Through robust and relevant research programs, we have an opportunity to:

1. Glean insights into causes and prevention of mental illness, helping patients and their loved ones to better understand the “whys” of the illness.
2. Drive innovations to enhance treatment strategies and accessibility, and improve patient outcomes.
3. Leverage data analytics to precisely predict treatment response, potentially decrease treatment time and improve cost-effectiveness.
4. Enable evidence-based decision-making for the next generation of mental health providers, scholars, researchers, and administrators.
5. Positively influence current and future discussions about mental health care and the stigma associated with it.

The Rogers research advantage

1. Access to research participants

Patient participation and study enrollment (sample size) is cited as one of the most prominent barriers to conducting viable, significant behavioral health research. Rogers is well positioned to leap this hurdle:

• Rogers treats an average of 1,400 patients each day.
• Rogers is home to the largest OCD and anxiety program in the world, treating more than 300 patients each day.
• Rogers treats patients of all ages (children, adolescents, and adults), across a spectrum of disorder and symptom severity.
• Because of our reputation for high-quality care and safety, we have successfully and safely engaged hundreds of community participants as observational and “less than minimal-risk” controls in multiple research studies. Community partnership is an essential component of ongoing research success.

2. Access to data

Rogers has been collecting patient outcomes data for over two decades.  Our long-standing clinical foundation of measurement-based treatment and outcomes assessment has positioned Rogers as the largest collector of mental health-specific patient-reported outcomes measures in the nation, with OCD and anxiety patient data volumes topping the list.

Rogers’ proprietary automated assessment system allows us to collect patient outcomes data at admission, bi-weekly during treatment, at discharge, and at one-year follow-up.  About 90% of our patients consent to having their de-identified outcomes data utilized for research purposes, allowing our researchers access to millions of patient outcomes measures, all at the item level. 

In 2019 alone, Rogers completed 600,000 assessments with over 15 million data points. Our complete database includes 2.5 million assessments consented for research use.

3. Advances in technology

Understanding its value in both data collection and future treatment protocols, Rogers is developing and leveraging innovative technologies to advance research priorities. 

• Rogers developed a patient portal to enable patient data collection before admission and at more points following discharge. 
• Partnering with our electronic medical record developer, we have created a real-time model to provide clinical decision support, and to develop and validate predictive learning algorithms such as in suicide risk awareness. 
• In collaboration with San Diego State University, Rogers has pioneered the development of a mobile app to deploy cognitive exercises that may enhance OCD, anxiety and depression treatment. Studies to validate effectiveness were conducted in 2019 and results are promising. 
• Advances in biometric sensors and wearable technologies allow simple, continuous monitoring of detailed patient physiologic data both as an input and output of treatment. Such longitudinal data over a patient’s treatment timeline will aid researchers in better understanding acute and long-term therapy response patterns, as well as treatment readiness indicators related to sleep, stress, nutrition and physical activity. 
• Finally, with development of new and improved transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), two low-current, painless, neuro stimulation techniques, we are positioned to collaborate with leaders in the field to explore treatment enhancement, with the addition of high-precision, non-invasive stimulation therapy. 
• Rapid advances in computational platform power continue to increase our ability to interact with large health care data sets to support machine learning techniques applied to big data.  Our growing clinical effectiveness and data analytics talent and infrastructure makes Rogers uniquely suited to leverage AI and large population data sets in understanding complex variables and harnessing deep insights from mental health and addiction prediction and treatment strategies.

Publications and presentations

As a national leader in outcomes studies, much of our research has been published in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals and presented at national and international conferences. See examples of published studies and presentations here.

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