You’ve probably heard the old saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” It’s meant to be an encouraging message when you’re going through a hard time, but if you really think about it, it’s not always true.
Sometimes, you can change the hard things and make your life a little easier. And usually, it doesn’t make you any less strong—it makes you smart, strategic, and innovative.
Take group therapy, for example. The care itself is irreplaceable—but the paperwork that follows? That’s a different story. While evidence shows that it’s just as effective as individual therapy, the documentation is much more grueling. If it takes a clinician 10-15 minutes to document an individual therapy session (only three to five with Eleos… just saying 😉), you can imagine how quickly it adds up when you have a 15-person group.
Yeah, your math is correct, that’s hours of work—and it’s not making them any stronger. It’s just burning them out and taking them away from the important work happening during those group sessions.
Janice Ruesler, PhD, LPC, Director of Educational & Special Initiatives at Gibson Center for Behavioral Change, understood that—and it’s why she chose to bring in AI to make group documentation a whole lot easier.
She sat down with Dr. Denny Morrison on the No Notes podcast to talk about:
- The importance of groups in substance use disorder (SUD) care,
- How AI helps solve the documentation burden, and
- Tips and tricks to achieving a successful rollout.
Listen to their full conversation on the podcast, or continue reading for the highlights.
Why Group Therapy is the Backbone of SUD Treatment
A hard reality in SUD care is the stigma around it.
Many people with substance use disorders experience shame and guilt, which is why group therapy can be so powerful. When they can hear from others who are going through the same thing, or a peer counselor who has come out on the other side, it makes them feel less alone—and it often carries more therapeutic weight than hearing reassurance from an individual therapist.
As Dr. Ruesler put it, “It helps them find this understanding that they aren’t broken.”
In a group, they feel safe and can find a sense of belonging throughout their recovery process. That’s why about 90% of SUD treatment is delivered through groups, and it turns out, they’re extremely effective.
“Group is not just a collection of people sitting in a circle,” Dr. Ruesler explained. “It is a psychological tool that drives change that sometimes can’t be addressed within individual therapy.”
The open dialogue gives members the opportunity to practice new behaviors, receive feedback, and work on interpersonal challenges in real time.
How AI Helps Solve the Group Documentation Burden
But the positive client outcomes from group care don’t come easy.
Group documentation requires a master group note (the who, what, where, why), plus individual notes written for each participant. The administrative burden adds up quickly when one clinician is seeing groups with 10, 15, or even 20 participants.
That said, many clinicians would probably agree with Dr. Morrison’s sentiment: “I loved groups—I really didn’t like the documentation much though.”
Before Eleos
At Gibson, a 16-person group could mean up to 90 minutes of documentation after an hour-long session.
It’s no wonder group therapy is often underutilized—clinicians are having to do a lot more work for the same amount of productivity credit.
“If you think about it, I can write one note, or I can write 16,” Dr. Ruesler said. “And I get that same piece toward my productivity.”
Prior to having Eleos, Gibson approached this challenge by breaking up the groups across multiple staff. They would assign clinicians to groups to ensure the heavier documentation load wasn’t just weighted on an unlucky few.
However, as Dr. Ruesler noted, “Then you have to worry about all staff’s burnout.”
After Eleos
Luckily, that problem didn’t stick around for long. When Gibson brought in Eleos, the tide changed significantly.
They saw roughly an 80% reduction in group note time. A session that used to generate nearly 90 minutes of post-session work now takes 10 to 15 minutes.
For a field already stretched thin by workforce shortages and burnout, that time is everything. The hours reclaimed through Eleos are equivalent to fitting in another full session—without adding a single expectation to anyone’s productivity targets.
And on top of that, staff are more willing to take on group sessions.
“After Eleos, we don’t see as much resistance to groups, because of the assistance and the reduction in the amount of time staff have to spend on their notes,” Dr. Ruesler explained.
That’s a huge win, knowing how effective group care is in SUD treatment. Not to mention the efficiency gains it offers, which are becoming increasingly important amid policy changes and reimbursement cuts.
They’re also seeing anecdotal evidence that clients are feeling the change as well.
“My patients have said, ‘Janice, I really just feel like you’re more connected to me. You’re not worried about jotting a note. You turn the recorder on, and you’re just present and here,’” Dr. Ruesler explained.
That presence matters clinically. When a provider isn’t mentally drafting a note, they can catch the tear that slides down a client’s face. They notice the shift in body language. They pick up on the micro-expressions that a group setting surfaces constantly, and that documentation pressure buries.
Tips & Tricks to Rolling Out AI
AI is not your average technology implementation. Rolling it out to your staff—and clients—takes time and a true dedication to jumping in with both feet.
Dr. Ruesler shared a few ways Gibson made their Eleos implementation successful. Here’s what they learned along the way—and how you can put it to work at your organization.
Use Clinicians as Champions
Gibson started with a small group that went through a pilot and initial training with Eleos—testing it in-house and giving plenty of feedback throughout the process.
Included in that small group were not just leaders and data staff, but clinicians who would actually be using the solution. They called them “champions,” and when they rolled Eleos out to the entire organization, those folks became invaluable.
Letting those champions—who were peers, not just managers—carry the message to the rest of the organization helped with adoption because staff genuinely trusted what they had to say.
Tackle Staff Skepticism
But of course, you’re still going to have some staff who are wary of AI in general. They’re often worried about what it means for the privacy and protection of their patients—and those are valid concerns.
“We spent some time with those individuals,” Dr. Ruesler explained. “We talked about how, while Eleos does record, it doesn’t save it—and helping set up those security processes so staff felt comfortable sharing what Eleos was with patients.”
The added time spent with staff who were a bit more cautious paid off.
One staff member in particular said, “I’m an old man; if I can do it, anybody can do it. It has increased my happiness with my job. It has taken away my burnout. I’m not spending as much time on documents, and I get to do what I like to do, which is be with my patients.”
After giving Eleos a try and addressing their concerns, many of the early skeptics became AI’s biggest advocates.
For a more detailed outline of implementing AI at your organization, download this guide.
Find the Right Processes for Your Team
Implementing an AI solution like Eleos shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all process. Gibson found ways to make the tool work for their organization.
Audio Setup
First things first, they looked into how it would work in the room, in a session, with large groups and real audio limitations.
While Eleos can run on a laptop microphone, Gibson found that for groups of more than 10 participants, Owl devices—wall-mounted units with advanced noise-canceling microphones—made things run even more smoothly.
Rather than impeding a group with a laptop open in the center, the Owl device is out of the way and captures even the quietest voices in the far corner of the room—while canceling out background noise for even higher-quality documentation outputs.
In their more rural settings, where they have smaller groups, working off a laptop microphone works just fine.
That’s the kind of adaptations that make a real difference in staff adoption and the ROI of AI.
Name Introductions
Another process that Gibson put in place when using Eleos is to start every group with a quick round of first-name introductions before the session begins. It may feel a little awkward at first, Dr. Ruesler admitted, but clients haven’t pushed back, and the documentation quality is noticeably better.
Dr. Morrison pointed out that Eleos doesn’t actually need the introductions to distinguish voices, but it is a great process to ensure nothing gets missed—especially if it’s not a big deal to the clinician or client workflow.
Client Consent
Another area that Gibson tailored to their organization is in how they explain consent. During every client orientation, they use a simple analogy to describe Eleos: Talk to text.
It helps create the note; it doesn’t save the session.
That framing has resonated across nearly their entire client population, with only a small number—mostly individuals with paranoid ideation—opting out.
Dr. Ruesler shared, “If you explain it in a way that it is enhancing services for them, making the staff more focused on what they’re doing, and helping explain that it doesn’t store the data so that there’s no fear, we found a lot more buy-in.”
The Unexpected Upsides of AI
There were a few additional benefits of Eleos that Gibson didn’t anticipate when they rolled it out initially. There are likely even more of these realizations to come, but here’s what Dr. Ruesler has seen so far.
An Educational Tool
Using Eleos, providers started noticing interventions in their notes that they hadn’t consciously planned. Socratic questioning, motivational interviewing, and CBT techniques were being used as naturally as breathing—but never documented, because no one had time to stop and name them.
“We’ve been able to use it as a teaching tool to help expand their clinical knowledge and help them see, okay, what you thought was ‘chit chat’ is actually this clinical term, and this is the service you’re providing,” Dr. Ruesler explained.
Now, supervision at Gibson includes a standing question: “What intervention showed up in your Eleos notes this week that surprised you?”
For newer staff, it’s a way to expand their clinical vocabulary. For experienced providers, it’s a reminder that the work they’re already doing is sophisticated and worth capturing—and Eleos is helping them do that.
A Recruitment and Retention Tool
In a field where workforce shortages are a constant pressure, Gibson has found an unexpected edge in hiring: Eleos.
They now mention AI-supported documentation in job interviews—not just as a feature, but as a genuine benefit of working there. For candidates who’ve come from organizations where it was paperwork first, clients second, learning that Gibson has this kind of support changes the conversation.
“Staff is really excited when they come in the door and realize that they’re going to have an AI-supported documentation process,” Dr. Ruesler said.
And it works the other way too. When staff are considering leaving, knowing they’d lose that support—and go back to writing every note from scratch—is a real retention factor.
What’s Next for Gibson
Gibson is already using Eleos across individual, group, and mobile documentation—but they’re not stopping there.
A small group of staff is currently piloting Eleos’ assessment functionality, and the early feedback is overwhelmingly positive. The only “complaint” so far? It gives them almost too much to work with.
“The only feedback that I’ve heard was, ‘Janice, sometimes it gives us so much, we have to filter through it to figure out what we need.’ And I said, ‘That’s a good problem to have,’” Dr. Ruesler explained. “I would much rather have more data and get to choose and be more proactive with what you want in your note.”
She also noted that staff are loving how Eleos automatically generates dimension summaries using the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) model.
“Not only is it helping our staff write summaries, but it’s helping justify the rating scales that they’re giving,” Dr. Ruesler said.
And as Dr. Morrison noted, because ASAM dimensions also surface in group notes, providers can now track a client’s progression through those criteria in real time—from assessment through treatment.
For Gibson, it’s one more way documentation is becoming less of a burden and more of a clinical asset.
Advice for SUD Leaders
If your organization is weighing AI options, Dr. Ruesler’s first piece of advice is simple: Choose a partner who is going to be there for you throughout the whole process.
“I have never worked with a company that had things so outlined,” she said of the Eleos implementation process. “This is what we’re gonna do, this is what we need from you. The back-and-forth communication was invaluable—because you don’t always get that.”
And the support didn’t stop at go-live. More than a year in, Gibson still has a dedicated contact they can reach when a help ticket isn’t moving fast enough. That kind of ongoing partnership is rare—and when you’re rolling out a tool your entire clinical staff depends on every day, it matters.
But the deeper case for SUD leadership isn’t about implementation logistics. It’s about what happens to your staff—and your clients—when documentation stops being the enemy.
As Dr. Ruesler explained, “When clinicians are overwhelmed, they start to do generic cookie-cutter notes just to make it through the day.”
And that suffering is quiet. It doesn’t always show up in a compliance review. But it shows up in burnout, turnover, and care that’s a little less present than it could be.
Eleos flips that script. Documentation becomes a byproduct of the session, not the goal—which means providers can stay in what Dr. Ruesler calls their “clinician headspace” instead of toggling between caregiver and clerk.
And let’s be honest, all that documentation is built for auditors, not patients. Eleos handles that reality, too.
“We don’t have to worry whether our notes are going to pass the state audit,” Dr. Ruesler said, “Because we can just focus on the services we’re providing—and Eleos helps us document and show the quality work that we’re providing.”
There’s a clinical dimension to that presence, too.
“When our counselors are looking down to jot a note, they may miss a nonverbal cue. They may miss a tear slide down their patient’s face, a micro-expression, or even a shift in body language,” Dr. Ruesler explained. “So, Eleos takes that away and helps us just be present and there for our patient.”
When SUD providers are given the right tools, something shifts. The notes get better. The staff stay. And the organization moves, in Dr. Ruesler’s words, “from survival documentation mode to a center of excellence.”
From Survival Mode to Center of Excellence
While wise words and proverbs may make it into language,” there’s no denying that the strongest move isn’t grinding through the pain, but being smart enough to remove it.
What makes a great clinician isn’t the ability to write 16 notes after a grueling group session. It’s the ability to be fully present in that room. To catch the nonverbal cue.
As Dr. Ruesler put it: “You don’t hire your staff to be clerks. You hire them to be healers. Using Eleos gives them a tool to be able to provide better services.”
That’s the real case for AI in SUD care. Not efficiency for efficiency’s sake—but giving providers the presence, the time, and the breathing room to keep doing the work they’re so passionate about.
Your clinicians don’t have to be worn down by a thousand administrative cuts to prove they’re strong. They just need the right tools.
If you believe that, reach out to set up a demo. We’d love to show you how Eleos can help your team work smarter, not harder.
