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5 Ways ABA Providers Can Use AI to Be More Efficient – Today!

Monkeys evolve to become AI
Have you heard of ChatGPT, generative AI, or large language models (LLMs)? Artificial intelligence and its promise to transform countless industries is everywhere these days. If AI discussions make your head spin, don’t worry!
 
This article will give concrete examples on how Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) providers can harness the capabilities of existing AI tools to enhance their practice…today! I’ll point you towards value resources and offer concrete examples of ways our ABA practice is already using AI to save time and increase productivity in our practice. 
 
WARNING: Before continuing, it is important to stress the limitations and risks for using AI at this point in time. First and foremost, most of these models are not HIPAA compliant, meaning that you should never include health-related or personally identifiable health information (PHI) in your prompts.  Additionally, these tools are known to “hallucinate,” which means they can fabricate information or create non-existent sources. Therefore, you must conduct thorough review of the information provided by these tools, especially in professional or critical contexts. As a user, you bear the ultimate responsibility for the content you publish or use, so it’s important to scrutinize and verify every word generated by an LLM to ensure accuracy and reliability. There are countless examples of embarrassing mishaps and retractions for this exact reason – don’t fall into this trap.

Table of Contents

  1. What is Generative AI?
  2. How to: Use AI to Create Instagram Posts
  3. How to: Use AI to Write Emails
  4. How to: Use AI to Create Policy Documents
  5. How to: Use AI to Conduct Patient Intake After Business Hours
  6. How to: Use AI to Brainstorm 
  7. Parting Wisdom: Have Fun & Be Careful

What is Generative AI?

Chat GPT logo and banner
First things first, what is generative AI? Generative AI refers to a subset of artificial intelligence models and algorithms designed to produce output such as images or text from sampled data. Think of generative AI as a chef who has tasted every dish in the world. By understanding the flavors, ingredients, and cooking techniques from countless recipes, this chef can whip up entirely new and unique dishes. 
As an example, I asked Dall-e, a free image-producing generative AI to make me “a picture of a chef cooking pumpkin soup in the style of Picasso”, which produced the following results:
AI generated image of a chef making pumpkin soup

Cool.

Another common tool is ChatGPT, a version of generative AI that creates text instead. Here is what happened when I asked it to “write me an ABA haiku”.

> Behavior shapes life,
> Reinforcers guide the way,
> Change through small steps thrives.

Super cool.

But besides having fun, our practice has found creative ways to leverage generative AI for productivity. Below are some examples of ways we’ve thought to use it. If you have other examples, let us know in the comments below!

How to: Use AI to Create Instagram Posts

AI generated instagram posts for a ABA provider
When it comes to creating slides or social media posts, we prefer to use a tool called Canva, who just released their generative AI-powered Magic Studio.
 
I asked it to “create instagram posts for children’s ABA therapy” and I was instantly presented with 20 different options (see 5 examples here). These posts were already in our brand colors and fonts. As someone without a creative bone in his body, this is incredible. I spent a bit more time changing photo text and writing captions. Canva probably did 90% of the work for me, but within minutes, I had social media posts scheduled for the next 2 months!
 
Note: the most effective social media should be engaging, thoughtful, provoke a conversation, or teach you something. Images produced by AI are a bit “shallow” in that regard, so you should aim to couple them with insightful captions. Still, even shallow posts are good for brand awareness. 

How to: Use AI to Write Emails

emails flying from a keyboard

Generative AI is great at providing me with a first draft of emails. I use ChatGPT to create the first version (~80% correct), then edit it to match my style. Although this email wouldn’t have taken me too much time to write myself, using ChatGPT for a first draft took a lot of the brain-power out of it.

As an example, I asked ChatGPT to “write me an email to request a parents new availability for the summer and ask if they have any vacations planned. Ask them to fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/233192951608359”

The result was:

Dear Parents,

I hope this email finds you well. As we prepare for the summer season at our ABA practice, we kindly request your assistance in providing us with your availability and any vacation plans you may have.

Understanding your availability will help us better plan and allocate resources for therapy sessions during the summer months. To streamline this process, we have created a simple form for you to fill out. Please take a moment to complete the form using the following link: Client Availability Request Form.

Your cooperation is greatly appreciated. Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]

How to: Use AI to Create Policy Documents

A google doc of a cancellation policy for an ABA company

At the beginning of your practice, a huge amount of effort is spent documenting your company policies and procedures. These are used during new therapist onboarding and sent to parents during intake.

Notion is an amazing generative AI tool that not only helps you create these documents, but can also serve as an internal wikipedia for your team.

I asked it to write a cancellation policy document for our parents and therapists (see result). Clearly, the AI doesn’t know about the actual policies we want as an organization. You will definitely need to review and make edits. Yet, it was able to come up with a template document with some example policies that can greatly speed up the documentation process. Again, this super-charges your first draft process, rather than making a polished final product.

How to: Use AI to Conduct Candidate Intake After Business Hours

Sample of AI from Paradox

Large language models have turned annoying chatbots into incredibly useful tools. An example of this is a company called paradox.AI.

With their tool, you automatically screen potential interviewees to see if they have the required qualifications and credentials and then have them schedule an interview – all without any human interaction! This is especially important because it allows you to engage with potential recruits outside of normal business hours. This was demonstrated in practice when Houston Methodist Hospital implemented their chatbot and that found 60% of their candidates applied after hours through this chatbot.

How to: Use AI to Brainstorm

Using Chat GPT to Brainstorm ways to reduce cancellation rate for an ABA company
I find generative AI is also helpful in brainstorming ideas. We recently had a meeting with our clinical leadership team to think of ways we can reduce cancellation rates at our practice. Before the meeting, I asked ChatGPT to “recommend me 5 ways I can improve the cancellation rate of my ABA practice”. You can view the full recommendation here.
 
It quickly listed 10 different ideas that we can consider. Although these ideas were high-level and a bit fluffy, I pulled out a few nuggets from their suggestions that were worth investigating. Had any of the cancellations been because parents are struggling with transportation? I wasn’t sure of this, so our team decided to do some analysis. Here, generative AI is not the subject-matter expert, but a good way to generate a large list of ideas that our team of experts can consider.

Parting Wisdom: Have Fun & Be Careful

Using Chat GPT to Brainstorm ways to reduce cancellation rate for an ABA company

Generative AI can be a lot of fun. The beautiful pupper above is what happened when I asked Dall-E to make a realistic portrait of a colleagues white Somoyed, Mookie. But, with great power, comes great responsibility. Please treat this as a tool as a powerful assistant, not as a replacement to your job. Please carefully review anything these tools produce before sharing, and please respect privacy concerns and never add PHI/PII into these tools. 

Have you come up with other creative ways to use AI to boost the producivity of your ABA practice? Let us know in the comments below!

Interested in Teamwork? Schedule a Demo!

At Teamwork,we pride ourselves on being different from our competition. Teamwork is built specifically for ABA providers with a focus on clinical quality. We automate manual work associated with scheduling (e.g. calculating commute times) so your team can focus on what’s important: delivering quality care to your patients.

Interested? Fill out the form below to sign-up for a demo of our tool!

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