A powerful treatment for severe depression using magnetic brain stimulation has gone live at Stanford Medicine. Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy, or SAINT, which delivers electric currents from a magnetic coil placed on the scalp to rapidly treat major depressive disorder, was made available as part of standard clinical care May 9, 2025. Stanford Medicine’s Technology & Digital Solutions group has made crucial contributions to the implementation of this therapy.
“Chronic depression is a prevalent issue that can lead to significant challenges for both patients and their families if left untreated,” said Isil Arican, MD, MHA and Executive Director of Clinical Applications, TDS. “It’s so motivating and exciting to be able to make this application go live to be able to treat people who are not responding to any other treatment, and to make a change in their lives.”
Depression is ranked by WHO as the one of the largest contributors to global disability. Alarmingly, half of those suffering from this debilitating condition do not find relief with standard treatments. This “treatment-resistant depression” represents a significant challenge for individuals and health care systems worldwide.
Nolan Williams, MD, an associate professor at Stanford University and director of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab, developed the treatment, which underwent a double-blinded trial and achieved FDA approval. SAINT uses precisely targeted electric currents from a magnetic coil placed on the scalp to excite a region of the brain implicated in depression.
Before starting treatment, patients undergo a specialized MRI scan that maps their unique neural networks, helping to identify a personalized target for therapy. With this tailored approach in place, SAINT delivers intermittent theta-burst stimulation, which sends a rapid sequence of magnetic pulses to the brain. This technique operates at a quicker pace than conventional neurostimulation methods, effectively altering brain activity linked to depression.
Seventy-nine percent of trial participants experienced rapid relief from symptoms in a double-blind controlled study at Stanford University School of Medicine.
“To be able to be part of a team that is helping the Stanford ecosystem to be able to provide an alternative cure for treatment-resistant depression is huge,” said Arican.
“Our Stanford pillars are to discover, to care, and to educate. This is a great example of how something that was in research is now commercially available for our patients. So it brings together the research and health care aspects of our mission,” said Gautami Shirhatti, Senior Director for Ambulatory Systems and Services.
TDS and Teamwork
Taking SAINT to the clinic setting was a collaborative effort across numerous TDS teams and Stanford Medicine. “This requires so many different teams’ collaboration,” said Arican. “It shows how we can come together to offer something that is very unique and impactful.”
“The collaborative expertise of various TDS teams allowed us to integrate this workflow to our existing flow, but also create some unique workflow specifically for this treatment,” she added.
Highlighting the seamless collaboration across different teams, Arican noted that it’s the creative efforts of our application teams that have built the robust infrastructure necessary for our application to function effectively within our ecosystem. This involves managing complex data flows, including imaging data, and the invaluable support from revenue cycle and other teams to guide us in this process. TDS’s legal and finance teams also played a crucial role, said Shirhatti.
“It’s so motivating and exciting to be able to make this application go live to be able to treat people who are not responding to any other treatment, and to make a change in their lives."
- Isil Arican, MD, MHA and Executive Director of Clinical Applications, TDS
The TDS teams dedicated significant time to gather requirements from all impacted departments, meticulously test the system, and identify gaps before launch. They also developed training materials, conducted user training sessions, and collaborated with the vendor to ensure SSO requirements were met, facilitating successful user access and planning for both go-live support and post-launch support.
“The TDS team encountered challenges due to the unique SAINT workflow setup,” said Shirhatti. “The commitment to the deadline and go-live did not shift and the team worked hard and diligently to set up the system per the requirements. Communications with various stakeholders across the organization and team effort were key to this successful project launch.”
