Clinicians should use care with mental health applications, expert cautions
UCI Health psychiatrist says patient-clinician connection should be maintained
IN THE NEWS: Mental health applications are increasingly popular for patients. But a growing number of psychiatric and mental health clinicians are using apps in their practice.
Dr. John Luo, a psychiatrist and director of Emergency & Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at UCI Health Psychiatry Services, spoke with the Psychiatric Times while attending the 2025 American Psychiatric Association (APA) Annual Meeting about the risks of becoming overly reliant on such apps.
“In our field, we don’t want to lose touch with the whole purpose of the connection and the physician-patient dyad. To me, that’s why I’m in medicine.”
"If you lose that sense of connectedness and humanity, then really we are just playing video games."
Luo is also a professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. He is an internationally recognized educator and expert on behavioral health informatics. He has presented at numerous conferences, written books and articles on technology use in mental health and has been recognized locally and nationally for excellence in teaching.
About UCI Health
UCI Health, one of California’s largest academic health systems, is the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine. The 1,317-bed system comprises its main campus UCI Medical Center, its flagship hospital in Orange, Calif., the UCI Health — Irvine medical campus, four hospitals and affiliated physicians of the UCI Health Community Network in Orange and Los Angeles counties and a network of ambulatory care centers across the region. UCI Medical Center provides tertiary and quaternary care and is home to the only Orange County-based National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, high-risk perinatal/neonatal program and American College of Surgeons-verified Level I adult and Level II pediatric trauma center, gold level 1 geriatric emergency department and regional burn center. Powered by UC Irvine, UCI Health serves nearly 5.7 million people in Orange County, western Riverside County and southeast Los Angeles County. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).