Ever since Michelle Moreno started volunteering at an after-school program for kids with disabilities, she knew she wanted to find a career focused on helping people.
Since then, she’s had the opportunity to work in many different settings and specialties, from autism therapy to brain and spinal cord injury rehab. After earning a degree in psychology from Michigan State University and becoming a licensed professional counselor, Moreno landed a position in the Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program at Easterseals MORC in 2018.
“I enjoy working with individuals who really need the help, the little step, to become better and stable in their mental health,” Moreno said. “It’s been with me my whole life, and I will continue doing it.”
Embracing Telehealth Technology as a Remote Provider
When she moved back to her home state of Florida in 2022 to be closer to family, Easterseals MORC transitioned her to a fully remote role in which she sees Michigan-based individuals exclusively via telehealth. For Moreno, healthcare technology is second nature—so she was eager to embrace the Eleos platform when Easterseals MORC started piloting it in 2023.
Jumping onto the AI Tech Wave with Eleos
Even though she wasn’t able to attend the in-person training session in Michigan, Moreno picked up the Eleos program with no problem using self-guided training resources. “It was pretty easy once I logged in,” she said, noting that the Eleos workflow is super intuitive and perfectly in tune with her own workflow.
And the reaction of those she is seeing? “Through all the times that I have used Eleos—which is every single session—not once has someone told me, ‘I don’t want this on my screen,’” she said, referencing the note-taking bot that appears during telehealth sessions documented with Eleos.
Of course, Moreno does her best to educate each person on the purpose behind the bot when they notice it on their screen. “When the note-taker pops up, they’re usually like, ‘Wait, what’s this?’” she explained. “I tell them, no worries—it’s just a robot. There’s no person there, it’s just something taking notes. We’re still just one-on-one right now.”
Focusing on People—Not Progress Notes
While the individuals Moreno interacts with seem totally unaffected by Eleos, it has been an absolute game-changer for her.
“It really helps out a lot, especially when it comes to trying to connect better with the individuals I’m seeing,” she said. “It gives me an opportunity to really hear them out rather than just writing what I need to—and possibly missing out on something where I could have helped them more.”
In addition to giving Moreno the ability to listen more intently to each person, Eleos has removed the pressure of remembering every detail about every session. “I have a lot of individuals to see, so I usually have a lot of things in my head, and I don’t want to confuse one client with another,” she said. “There are times that I have to go back later on, and I can just read through what was said. So the time I was spending just trying to remember what was said is completely removed, and now I’m able to actually focus on the things that were said or discussed.”
Building Confidence and Nurturing Growth
In some cases, Eleos has illuminated treatment details or considerations that Moreno otherwise might not have picked up on. “It gave me a way to get more information out of the sessions,” she said. “When I read through the little comments on the side as I’m writing my notes, I’m like, ‘Wow, yeah, we did talk about that!’ Or, ‘I forgot that we even talked about that!’ So that has been very helpful.”
Eleos has also given Moreno unprecedented visibility into her own contributions to each session, which has been not only a major confidence-booster, but also a valuable tool for self-reflection and self-improvement. “I myself don’t recognize what I’ve done at times during sessions, and Eleos has given me that opportunity to know what I’ve done,” she said. “And it creates confidence, too, because I’m like, ‘Wow, yeah! I am being a clinician—I am doing my job!’”
She especially loves the simple breakdown of talk time versus listen time, open-ended questions versus closed-ended questions, and therapy skills and interventions used. “It has really benefited me in trying to become a better therapist,” she said, adding that this portion of the session summary also helps her create more well-rounded notes.
“When I take notes myself, I usually focus on what the client is presenting rather than what I’m presenting, so having that little section in Eleos on the things that I did was very beneficial for me, because then I can express that in the notes.”
Encouraging Others to Give AI a Try
Moreno says that, similar to telehealth, she envisions AI becoming more commonplace as more clinicians discover the benefits. But to her colleagues and peers who might still be a bit wary of having a robot present during therapy conversations, she offers these words of encouragement—from one helper to another:
“It’s worth a shot. It’s a learning experience, and you shouldn’t be afraid of something new. If it doesn’t work for you, then it doesn’t work—but you don’t want to miss out on something that could help you out. And for me, it’s helped out a lot.”
