Establishing a Standardized Dataset for Psychedelic Medicine

A Delphi Expert-Consensus study

The Psychedelic Mental Health Access Alliance (PMHA), UC Berkeley’s Collaborative on the Economics of Psychedelics (CEP), and McGill University are launching a Delphi Expert-Consensus Study to develop a standardized set of measures and variables for psychedelic-assisted therapy across diverse clinical and research settings.

This initiative responds to a critical need: current approaches to data collection vary widely between research studies and are inconsistently applied in clinical settings. By creating a set of standardized measures and variables, this project aims to:

• Improve the comparability of scientific studies

• Enable “real-world” effectiveness research

• Guide best practices in clinical and community-based settings

• Support policy and insurance decision-making

Why this matters:

• Supports effectiveness research necessary for public and private insurance coverage

• Improves data comparability across clinics, studies, and patient populations

• Guides evidence-informed practice in a rapidly evolving therapeutic field

• Lays the groundwork for safety monitoring, reimbursement models, and scalable care systems

A Delphi survey is a structured, multi-round research process that uses anonymous feedback to build expert consensus. This process will:

• Involve at least three iterative rounds of structured input and feedback

• Engage diverse stakeholders, including:

  • Clinicians

  • Researchers

  • Health economists

  • Medicaid and health policy experts

• Produce a consensus-based framework to guide effective and practical implementation of psychedelic-assisted therapy data collection tailored to specific contexts

We are recruiting a multidisciplinary panel of experts to ensure balanced representation, including:

• Clinicians – frontline experience with psychedelic therapy delivery

• Researchers – expertise in mental health, public health, and health economics

• Policy/Health Systems Experts – focus on safety, regulation, and cost-effectiveness

• Medicaid Experts – specialization in coverage and integration into public insurance programs

Get involved:
If you’re a clinician, researcher, policymaker, or Medicaid expert with relevant experience, we invite you to complete the form linked here to express your interest in this groundbreaking project to shape the future of psychedelic medicine.

Note: Completing the form does not represent a formal commitment to participate. Additional details about the methodology and next steps will be shared with invited participants in the coming months.

If you have any questions about the form or would like to connect further about this work, feel free to reach out to Sara de la Salle at sara.delasalle@mail.mcgill.ca or Dara Menashi at dara@pmhaa.org.