New Study Confirms Compass Leads to Better Clinical Outcomes

What happens when you don’t just expand access to mental health care, but scale it the right way?

You start to see a different kind of story. Not just more people entering care, but more people getting better. Not just sessions delivered, but lives changed.

At Spring Health, we’ve always believed that access is only the starting point. The real opportunity and responsibility is delivering care that works. Consistently. At scale. But scaling mental health care isn’t just about reaching more people—it’s about making sure every interaction drives progress. That only happens with quality data.

In mental health, outcomes have long been the missing piece. Few systems measure them. Fewer still improve them. And without the right data, care can stall. People get stuck. Or drop out. Or give up.

That’s one of the reasons we built Compass—our own care delivery and Electronic Health Record (EHR) platform—and why every Spring Health provider is required to use it. Every provider-patient interaction is captured in a single, unified system, giving us full visibility into what’s working across our entire network. 

That means we’re not just improving care for a subset of members—we’re able to influence every care decision. And because Compass is both our EHR and our engine for continuous improvement, we feed those insights right back into the system, so better care is always at a provider’s fingertips.

Compass supports the full treatment journey, from matching members with the right provider from the start, to delivering ongoing measurement-based care, to facilitating seamless coordination between therapists, care navigators, physicians, and even external primary care providers. It’s not just about one appointment—it’s about building a connected, data-informed system of support around every member.

The latest findings from Spring Health’s health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) team show that since Compass launched in 2022, clinical outcomes have improved with every enhancement. That kind of sustained, measurable progress is rare in mental health—and it shows what’s possible when you scale care with precision, not just reach.

New research shows increasingly effective outcomes

Spring Health has delivered strong results through our comprehensive mental health platform from the start. Then in 2022, a study published in JAMA Open showed that our approach outperformed the gold standard for evidence-based mental healthcare. For context, an effect size of 0.8 is widely recognized as the benchmark for highly effective care. 

So yes, people were getting better. But that was just the beginning.

Compass has made it possible to integrate data-driven support—what researchers call "actuarial judgment"—into more parts of our care experience. That includes helping match members with the right provider from the start and giving clinicians clear insights into when a treatment plan may need to shift.

Our research team recently looked at how clinical outcomes have changed since Compass launched. What they found was exciting: outcomes have consistently improved over time, with each Compass enhancement pushing results even higher.

We used a statistical measure called effect size, which helps standardize results across studies. It captures how much a member improves, relative to the natural variation in the data—essentially, showing how meaningful the improvement is.

Here’s how Spring Health’s treatment effectiveness (measured by effect size) has progressed:

The chart shows a steady, meaningful increase in treatment effectiveness since Compass launched in 2022. As new features were introduced—like measurement-based care enhancements—effect sizes climbed from 1.3 to 1.8. Each improvement contributed to more consistent, higher-quality outcomes across our care network.

These gains reflect our ongoing commitment to improving care—through better use of data, more personalized provider matching, stronger safety practices, and consistent support throughout the care journey.

The takeaway? We're helping more people feel better, faster by innovating in Compass.

How we’re using data to power continuous improvement

So, what’s behind these steadily improving outcomes? It all comes down to something we call the data flywheel.

Compass is built to get smarter and more effective over time. Every interaction between a provider and a patient generates valuable data. That data helps us improve how we deliver care—not just for one person, but for everyone who comes next.

The process works like this:

1. Every provider-patient interaction is captured in Compass, generating millions of data points
2. This data enables us to refine things like patient-provider matching and treatment approaches, improving clinical outcomes
3. Better outcomes attract more members to our platform
4. More members generate more data
5. More data fuels further refinement and improvement

It’s a cycle that generates better outcomes with each new data point. Every completed assessment, every care milestone, and every recovery adds insights to the system, helping us learn what’s working and where we can do better.

The result? A constantly evolving care model that benefits from thousands of treatment journeys and millions of data points. We’re able to spot patterns and insights that even the most seasoned clinicians might miss on their own.

The recent HEOR study backs this up: the flywheel is working. It’s producing measurable results. People are getting better, faster—and every turn of the wheel helps us raise the bar even higher.

Two of the key drivers behind this improvement are:

1. Matching people with the right provider
2. Using measurement-based care and Compass to guide treatment

We’ll break down how each of these contributes to better outcomes next.

Precision matching fuels therapeutic alliance

One of the strongest predictors of success in therapy is what's known as the therapeutic alliance—the sense of trust and partnership between a provider and their patient.

Compass uses data to match patients and providers, helping people to find the right therapist for their specific needs—right away.

Take someone experiencing trauma, for example. Instead of being matched with just any trauma specialist, Compass connects them with a provider who has successfully treated others with a similar set of symptoms. The system also factors in which providers tend to keep patients engaged during those first few sessions, when the relationship is still forming and most vulnerable to drop out.

Members can also tailor their match further, choosing providers who share similar life experiences or cultural backgrounds—because feeling understood impacts outcomes.

This level of precision helps prevent one of the most common breakdowns in care: when the first connection doesn’t feel right, and someone walks away from treatment rather than trying again.

Getting the match right from the beginning keeps people engaged, helps them start feeling better sooner, and lowers costs for employers and health plans alike.

How measurement-based care (MBC) changes the equation

Traditionally, mental health providers have relied on clinical expertise and what patients share in sessions to understand whether treatment is working. But that approach can make it hard to spot when someone isn’t progressing—or when it’s time to change course.

Compass changes that. It gives providers real-time, data-driven insights that guide care every step of the way. This approach is called measurement-based care (MBC). It means regularly assessing symptoms throughout treatment—not just at the beginning—so clinicians can make informed decisions in the moment.

Implementing MBC takes extra time and effort from providers, but it’s effort that leads to better care. What makes Compass unique is that it doesn’t just enable MBC—it allows us to track its use and directly reward providers for delivering higher-quality care. Instead of being paid based on volume, clinicians are recognized and compensated for doing what brought them to the profession in the first place: helping people improve.

Here’s how Compass uses MBC data to support care:

• Tracks how each patient is progressing over time
• Alerts providers if someone’s progress stalls
• Helps identify which providers are most effective for different needs
• Incentivizes high-quality, data-informed care

With this level of visibility, providers don’t have to rely on guesswork. They can see what’s working and act sooner when something’s not.

This helps solve one of the toughest challenges in mental healthcare: knowing when therapy isn’t helping before someone decides to give up on it. With Compass, providers can step in sooner, adjust the plan, and keep people on the path to feeling better.

Compass as the engine to better care

Spring Health’s mission to break every barrier to mental health is just getting started.

Every day, thousands of patient-provider interactions help us learn more about what works—and for who. And as the data shows, Compass is driving real results. It’s the engine behind our data flywheel, making our system smarter and more effective with every connection.

This data-driven approach doesn’t just help people feel better faster—it also delivers meaningful value. By getting care right the first time, Compass reduces the number of ineffective sessions, prevents treatment drop outs, and lowers overall costs. That adds up to a strong, measurable ROI for employers and health plans.

But while this transformation is powered by technology, it’s ultimately a human story. Better data leads to better care—and better care leads to better lives. That’s the future we’re building: one insight, one connection, one person at a time.

Next, we’re harnessing the power of AI to support providers even further—reducing administrative burden, surfacing a single, clear score to track patient progress, and optimizing schedules so clinicians can spend more time with the members they’re best equipped to help.

We’re also developing population-level insights to help care teams proactively identify and re-engage members who need support most.

Because scaling mental health care isn’t just about more access. It’s about delivering smarter, more connected, more human care at every step.

Explore how we're raising the bar for employer-backed mental health benefits, with an ROI performance guarantee that ensures increasing financial returns or your money back.