Evidence from real primary care visits.
Studied under IRB-approved protocols in independent primary care practices. The first study is complete, and the second is underway. Four physicians at two practices have opened a Brief for more than seventy patients.
Study design.
A feasibility study with its threshold and its question fixed before the first patient enrolled.
An IRB-approved feasibility study of the Care Companion in primary care, with the principal investigator reviewing every Brief before it reached the physician.
A single primary care practice for the first study. A second independent primary care practice is running the same protocol now.
Consented adult patients attending scheduled primary care visits. Fifty patients completed the intake in the first practice, and each one’s physician received a Brief.
A PHQ-9 of 10 or higher, a GAD-7 of 10 or higher, or documented current or historical suicidality.
Whether each patient above the threshold had a documented clinical action at the visit, verified against the physician’s contemporaneous notes.
Independent recomputation of every case from the patient’s submitted responses.
Every patient above the pre-specified threshold had a documented clinical action.
The first practice’s study, now complete.
Consented adult patients completed the intake, and their physician received a Brief, nearly always before the visit.
Every patient above the pre-specified threshold had a clinical action recorded in the physician’s notes from that visit.
Independent recomputation of all fifty cases found none.
The study measured documented clinical actions at the visit. It did not measure patient outcomes or diagnostic accuracy, and it had no control arm.
Three more physicians, at a second independent practice.
Running since September 2026 under the same IRB-approved protocol. The principal investigator reviews every Brief before it reaches the physician, and findings will be shared here when the study closes.
Sources
Want the full detail?
The full study record is available on request.