Mental Health America is joining forces with M3 Information, the leading developer of validated online mental health screening tools, to reach tens of millions of Americans with mental health issues utilizing new Internet and iPhone/PDA based applications for mental health promotion and prevention. 

The first collaborative project is the M3 Mental Health Checklist, a 27-question, three-minute online checklist that accurately indicates whether a patient may have any of four major mental health conditions. The free and private screener is available at www.mymoodmonitor.com and is independently funded by M3 Information.

The test was validated to be as accurate as traditional in-office mental health screeners, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of North Carolina and published in the Annals of Family Medicine.

"This exciting partnership will allow us to combine our efforts to educate the public about diagnosable and treatable illnesses with a simple and practical tool to determine if help should be sought," said David L. Shern, Ph.D., president and CEO of Mental Health America.

The M3 Checklist is private, simple to use, and does not require any personal information to be divulged. It can be taken online, and is also available as an application for mobile devices. Users can monitor their progress by retaking the test at regular intervals on Microsoft's HealthVault (http://www.healthvault.com), which ensures the results remain private but allows the information to be shared with clinicians. 

The M3 Checklist also indicates whether a user is at risk for suicide or substance use, and the web-based version prints a one-page test report that a user can give to their doctor. The iPhone/PDA version of the M3 features a pop-up screen that allows users whose test indicates that they might be at risk of suicide to call with a single touch the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which is run by Mental Health Association of New York City. The iPhone application is named MYM3.

The M3 is the also the first validated application to use electronic medical record (EMR) technology. ::