Dr. TM Robinson Mosley gave a presentation at the Minnesota Twins' Techstars Demo Day earlier this year.
In August 2024, the sporting world will witness the launch of The Playbook, an innovative software platform designed to transform the way athletes and sporting organisations approach mental health and wellbeing. Dr TM Robinson-Mosley, a second generation counselling psychologist with extensive experience in sports mental health, has been working on the development of The Playbook since 2018. The new software aims to close the significant gap that currently exists between athletes' wellbeing and performance.
Dr. Mosley’s journey to developing this technology is rooted in her own experience and expertise. As a former athlete who worked in the field of sports mental health, she witnessed the intersection of how mental health impacts sports performance. Through her various leadership roles in college, she saw a great need for increased access to help and resources. “If it’s built into the system, help and support becomes part of the ecosystem,” says Dr. Mosley. Through her roles as an associate dean at Dartmouth College and vice president and dean of students at the University of California, Santa Cruz, she became interested in further exploring how performance and health are interconnected.
Despite the increasing recognition of the importance of mental health in sports, Dr. Mosley noticed a persistent gap in the market. “We put so much effort into the physical health of our athletes, why don’t we focus on mental health?” Dr. Mosley asks. After starting private practice in 2014, she turned to full-time entrepreneurship in 2018. She decided she would no longer work in isolation and would take the opportunity to work directly with leaders of large companies within their ecosystems. Dr. Mosley and her team began working with organizations such as the NCAA and the NBA. When the demand for her services skyrocketed during COVID, she began thinking about entering the technology field. That’s when the idea for The Playbook was born.
“How do we quantify mental health statistics and give people tangible metrics on their mental health?” asked Dr. Mosley. She also began thinking about the various caregivers and people within organizations who are tasked with caring for athletes. “Playbook is an app and web-based dashboard that quantifies the state of mental health by tracking things like stress, wellness, and resilience,” Dr. Mosley explains. Not only does Playbook provide quantifiable mental health metrics, it also provides actionable insights to improve performance.
Playbook is a patent-pending, HIPAA-compliant SaaS platform that provides gamified psychological assessments for athletes ages 14-40. Through these brief questionnaires, key metrics like stress, wellness, and resilience are tracked. They are then provided with a personalized game plan to improve their performance from a mental health and wellness perspective. Athletes log into the app to complete the questionnaires and view the plan, while team personnel or administrators view an anonymized summary of their team's results. “Data security and privacy are at the highest level for us. Players must consent to the data being collected and who has access to that data,” explains Dr. Mosley.
When I ask if Playbook is a clinical platform because it's HIPAA compliant, she responds, “We're not a clinical platform. That's by design. We're designed to catch you before you get into the mental illness diagnostic spectrum.” The desktop dashboard allows mental health professionals and other team clinicians with approved access to proactively identify athletes who need support, rather than reacting to a crisis. Playbook is designed to be a versatile tool that can be used across many levels of sport.
“Playbook is a sports performance platform designed from a mental health perspective,” Dr. Mosley explains. The app's AI and machine learning capabilities mean the more users engage, the more personalized the experience becomes. Through a quantifiable snapshot of team health, Playbook helps organizations provide strategic and intentional care, ultimately resulting in better performance and overall athlete wellness. Launching in August 2024, Playbook aims to integrate mental health metrics into the fabric of athletic training, ultimately empowering athletes and organizations to perform at their best. As Dr. Mosley aptly states, “Taking care of your mental health gives you a competitive advantage.”
