[sithu]

I've been giving your idea some thought, and would be happy to discuss further over email if you like (in my profile).

I don't think HIPAA is the main problem you have. The biggest obstacle is whether any healthcare provider would be willing to participate. People in this area have little time, too much work/obligations, are generally not tech savvy, have fixed workflows that they're unwilling to deviate from, and even the smallest amount of friction in your product will make them give up.

If you're going to do this (and you probably should if you're passionate about it), then you have to think of a way to integrate seamlessly into existing workflows and minimize their time commitment. Your goal should be 5-10 mins per day, max, regardless of the number of people being "monitored". Think about the incentives to get providers to participate. How much turn-around time is realistic? I don't see how this will be an "imminent suicide" prevention system and there are already lots of hotlines for that, but it could be great to monitor mood over days/weeks.

Perhaps have a single daily aggregated and anonymized email to a provider's nurse at 7am (when most check their patient data) that updates them on all patients in the practice who are potentially in trouble. They click a link, enter a password, and see the non-anonymized data. Then the nurse can get on the phone and start calling people.