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In this case study:
Client: Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (GA-DBHDD)
Industry: Public Sector
Products and Services:
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Azure OpenAI Service
- Cosmos DB
- Azure App Service
Country: USA
From Documents to Decisions: Accelerating Behavioral Health with AI
The Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (GA-DBHDD) is the state agency responsible for providing treatment, support, and prevention services to individuals with mental health conditions, substance use disorders, and intellectual or developmental disabilities.
With a network that spans state hospitals, community-based providers, and crisis services, GA-DBHDD serves thousands of Georgians annually, ensuring access to care that is compassionate, person-centered, and effective.
The department is committed to promoting recovery and independence while improving outcomes across the behavioral health continuum through data-informed decisions, innovative care models, and strategic partnerships.
The Challenge
GA-DBHDD was facing critical bottlenecks in the risk assessment process for inpatient forensic services. Evaluators spent 8–12 hours per assessment manually reviewing and summarizing unstructured data across systems like the agency EHR and SharePoint, up to 20 documents per patient, and over 300 assessments annually. This not only delayed care decisions but also placed an unsustainable administrative burden on clinical staff.
Recognizing the need for change, GA-DBHDD partnered with Quisitive and Microsoft to explore how AI could improve the speed, quality, and efficiency of reviewing information for assessments.
The Solution
Quisitive began by leading an AI Strategy and Design engagement to identify the most impactful use cases. From this foundation, the team launched an initiative to build an enterprise-wide AI document generation platform and chatbot, leveraging:
- Azure OpenAI Service to draft initial risk assessments
- Cosmos DB to manage structured and unstructured data
- Azure App Service to support scalable, secure deployment
This AI-powered solution is designed to automatically generate first drafts of summary information used within the risk assessment by analyzing and summarizing large volumes of unstructured data. Instead of manually searching and compiling information, evaluators now receive a consolidated, context-aware summary, reducing assessment preparation time by an estimated four hours per case. This provides clinicians with an organized summary of gathered information to provide their clinical findings.
The Impact
- 4+ hours saved per assessment, resulting in 1,200+ hours annually
- Clinicians regain time for direct patient care
GA-DBHDD is projected to reduce administrative workload costs by over $100,000 per year. Beyond direct savings, reallocating clinician time to higher-value care activities will generate significantly greater operational impact, improving patient outcomes and accelerating decision-making across the department.
To ensure lasting value and continued innovation, GA-DBHDD is also engaging Quisitive for AI Managed Services, an ongoing support model that includes expert guidance on AI governance, compliance, and platform optimization.
"With a strong foundation in place, GA-DBHDD is positioned to scale its AI initiatives further and continue modernizing its operations - paving the way for smarter, more resilient public health services."
Jason McSwain, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Operations & CIO, GA-DBHDD
With a strong foundation in place, GA-DBHDD is positioned to scale its AI initiatives further and continue modernizing its operations - paving the way for smarter, more resilient public health services.
