The Pivot Playbook Two years and three versions later, St. John’s startup SOMA has found its place in the booming market for AI tools for psychologists

Writing a single psychological assessment report can take a clinician up to 15 hours. Ian Vardy says his software can produce a near-finished draft in about 40 minutes.

His company, St. John’s, N.L.-based SOMA Health Solutions, was officially incorporated in late 2023 and now sells an AI assistant built for psychologists. It records and transcribes sessions, as well as drafts session notes, treatment plans and assessment reports. Vardy says customers save between 20 and 40 hours a month.

Demand for mental health care in Canada is outpacing the supply of people who provide it. The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) reports that wait times for community mental health counselling rose 36 per cent between 2020 and 2024, and that 41 per cent of adults with a diagnosed mental illness have unmet health-care needs. Vardy says his research shows writing one assessment report can stretch across several weeks and psychologists may have anywhere from three to nine reports in progress at a time. Writing session notes can take an additional five to 10 hours each week. Every hour a clinician spends on paperwork is an hour not spent with a client.

A PERSONAL STARTING POINT

Vardy has seen that gap from the client’s chair. After he was diagnosed as neurodivergent, therapy became central to what he calls a journey of self-discovery. “I wanted to build tools that helped support the people who supported me,” he says.

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