BOSTON, Nov. 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Amwell® (NYSE: AMWL) today announced a research agreement with The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to study how digital mental health support can help veterans and transitioning service members connect with care for depression. This work leverages SilverCloud® by Amwell®, the digital cognitive behavioral therapy program delivered on the Amwell Platform, in research supported by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of War (DoW). The VA and DoW do not endorse any commercial product.

Led by Lucinda B. Leung, MD, PhD, MPH, associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at UCLA, the research will examine how digital cognitive behavioral therapy (cCBT) can be integrated into existing care. The work is supported by two major federal awards: a $2,923,778 DoW Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) grant and a part of an over $13.8 million VA Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) Center award.

Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide, and symptoms affect approximately 1 in 5 veterans. Barriers to mental health care access are most profound, and depression treatment most limited among veterans living in rural and far-reaching locales. More than 4.4 million veterans live in rural communities, where distance and limited provider availability can make depression care difficult to obtain, according to the VA. Internet-based cCBT may be a viable and effective option for addressing these barriers and improving the VA’s capacity to deliver evidence-based psychotherapy to rural veterans with depression. However, low uptake suggests that passive availability is insufficient to ensure veteran and service member engagement. Closing that gap between access and use is the question at the center of this research.

“Digital mental health tools can help us reach people who face barriers to care, but we need to understand how to make them work within the care people already receive,” said Leung. “Our goal is to learn which approaches most help veterans and transitioning service members to engage with treatment for depression and help us to sustain that engagement over time.”

The research will study how cognitive behavioral therapy-based digital programs, with structured content and interactive tools accessible on a smartphone, tablet or computer, can support engagement in depression care. The study will examine how digitally delivered cCBT programs fit best into existing VA clinical services and what support will be most helpful to people using them.

“We are encouraged by the growing body of evidence on the impact of the SilverCloud program of the Amwell Platform, working alongside the rest of the programs our clients offer,” said Ido Schoenberg, MD, chairman and CEO of Amwell. “That this research is being done for veterans makes it especially important. We are proud to serve these incredibly important men and women, and pleased that world-class researchers will invest their effort and expertise to further improve outcomes.”

The collaboration encompasses two complementary research efforts. The CDMRP grant will support 400 veterans and military members transitioning out of service, evaluating cCBT within depression care, including support from primary care teams and veteran peers. The VA QUERI award supports research on expanding virtual care for veterans in rural areas. SilverCloud will be featured in both efforts and supports the digital cCBT component of that broader program. Together, the grants will fund two randomized controlled trials involving SilverCloud and will reach over a thousand patients over five years.

Participant recruitment began in October 2026 for CDMRP and is expected to begin soon after for QUERI. The collaboration builds on Amwell’s work supporting military and veteran communities, including technology for the Military Health System’s Digital First program. The work also adds to SilverCloud’s growing body of evidence on engagement and outcomes. A separate, independently led, randomized trial published in Nature Human Behaviour in 2026 examined SilverCloud across 26 U.S. colleges and universities and reported two times higher participation in care and lower prevalence of measured mental disorders over a 2-year period compared with screening and referral to in-person care.

The studies build on nearly two decades of SilverCloud research, including more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and collaborations with Harvard Medical School, Trinity College Dublin, and Boston University. SilverCloud programs have been studied across populations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

SilverCloud is one program on the Amwell Platform, where it is available alongside Amwell Therapy and Amwell Psychiatry. Through the Amwell Platform, members access care through a unified experience under their health plan’s brand. The platform is designed to simplify discovery, navigation and enrollment across Amwell services and plan-selected third-party programs, and to route each member to the right covered service with less friction. Connected clinical pathways support stepped care, from self-paced digital programs for lower-acuity needs to clinician-led therapy and psychiatry when clinically appropriate, and help members reach primary, urgent and specialty care as their needs change. This stepped care approach, offered through a unified experience, is designed to give health plans, government agencies and employers a clear view of engagement and outcomes across the member care journey.

About Amwell
Amwell® (NYSE: AMWL) helps health plans, healthcare organizations and government agencies deliver connected, technology-enabled care that improves clinical and financial outcomes. The Amwell Platform connects consumer experiences, clinician workflows and clinical programs from Amwell and its partners to simplify access, strengthen engagement, deliver care reliably and support effective care across the continuum.

For two decades, Amwell has served some of the largest and most sophisticated healthcare organizations in the U.S. and worldwide, enabling care for millions. Recent recognition includes Frost & Sullivan’s 2026 United States Technology Innovation Leadership Recognition for technology-enabled care platforms, inclusion in TIME’s World’s Top HealthTech Companies of 2026, and selection as a quarterfinalist in the 2026 Digital Health & AI Awards.

For more information, visit business.amwell.com or LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/amwellcorp).

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