Highlights
Quick facts
Customer: Center for Ludomani — Denmark's national centre for treatment and prevention of gambling addiction
Industry: Specialist healthcare and member organisations
Experience: 30+ years of free, anonymous, specialist treatment for problem gambling and related challenges
Implementation year: 2024
Solution: Surveyxact integrated with the centre's clinical case management system via API, with a custom traffic-light visualisation module
Measurement points: intake, end of treatment, follow-up at 2 months, follow-up at 12 months
Most people who contact Center for Ludomani are in crisis. Gambling addiction rarely arrives alone — it brings debt, suicidal thoughts, broken relationships, reduced daily functioning, and psychological distress. Historically, getting an overview of a new client's situation meant pulling information from several different sources, and the clinician often built the picture during the first session itself.
Today, when a client walks in, the clinician already has a clinical overview ready. Risk areas are flagged in red and yellow. Strengths are flagged in green. The first conversation can therefore start where it matters most — not with intake questions, but with what the client is actually dealing with.
What was the clinical challenge — and why isn't gambling addiction treatment just about gambling?
People with gambling problems rarely present with gambling alone. Debt, suicidal thoughts, reduced daily functioning, mental distress, and strained social relationships almost always accompany the gambling itself — and addressing the full picture is what makes treatment effective. The clinical challenge was building a system that could capture all of these dimensions at intake, track them through treatment, and follow up long enough to see whether the gains held.
Center for Ludomani needed a solution that solved three things at once: give clinicians the overview they needed before the first conversation, strengthen the relationship with the client rather than getting in the way of it, and produce documentation strong enough to justify funding to both users and authorities.
"When people come to us, they're often in crisis. With the new overview, we get a quick and qualified entry into treatment."
— Brian Sebens, Head of Treatment, Center for Ludomani
How does Surveyxact integrate with the centre's clinical workflow?
The solution is built as a client evaluation system in which Surveyxact is integrated directly with the centre's case management system via API. Clients complete questionnaires at four points: before treatment starts, at the end of treatment, and at follow-ups 2 and 12 months later. Responses flow automatically into the clinician's overview, making it possible to identify risk areas and points of attention before the first session even begins.
The technical integration is meaningful, but the clinical innovation is the visual traffic-light module. Each measurement — wellbeing, mental state, financial pressure, and others — is categorised as green, yellow or red depending on severity. Green signals stability. Yellow signals attention needed. Red signals heightened attention and possible immediate action.
The four measurement points in the treatment journey
- Intake (before treatment begins): establishes baseline across gambling, wellbeing, debt, mental health and social relationships.
- End of treatment: measures change across the same dimensions and frames the conversation about what's next.
- Follow-up at 2 months: captures early signals of relapse or continued recovery.
- Follow-up at 12 months: documents long-term treatment effect — the data point funders and authorities ask for.
Complex clinical measurements mean little to a client in crisis — and only slightly more to a busy clinician trying to assess where to focus first. The traffic-light module converts every measured dimension into a single colour: green for stability, yellow for attention, red for urgency. The result is an overview a clinician can read in seconds and a client can read at all.
Crucially, the overview is shared. Clinicians can show clients their own traffic-light picture during the session. That shared visibility creates a common language for change — and, in the centre's experience, strengthens both motivation and the therapeutic alliance. Clients see that their responses are taken seriously and that the questionnaire is part of the treatment, not a bureaucratic add-on.
Why is data used inside the therapy conversation — not just for documentation?
Most evaluation systems exist for the benefit of the organisation: documentation for funders, reporting for management, audit trails for compliance. Center for Ludomani built theirs the other way around. The questionnaire data is brought into the conversation with the client, visualised together, and used to track change over time as a shared language between clinician and client.
This approach — using data to strengthen the treatment alliance rather than replace it — turns out to make a measurable difference. Clients experience that their answers are heard. Clinicians get a structured way to talk about progress that doesn't depend on memory or impression. And the documentation that funders and authorities need falls out of the same process for free.
"We know what works — but we don't necessarily know what works for the individual. This is where data helps us."
— Brian Sebens, Head of Treatment, Center for Ludomani
How was the questionnaire designed for clients in crisis?
Client involvement was a deliberate part of the development process. Test users participated from the start, and the questionnaires were built with validity, simplicity, relevance and mobile usability as design constraints. A high proportion of clients complete the questionnaires on their phone, which meant both the technical implementation and the wording had to feel intuitive — not clinical, not bureaucratic, not overwhelming.
"We've worked hard to strike the balance between professional rigour and user-friendliness — and the clients feel it. It needs to be easy to engage with, but still give us what we need."
— Brian Sebens, Head of Treatment, Center for Ludomani
How does the integration support data quality and follow-up in practice?
Because Surveyxact is integrated with the case management system, questionnaires are triggered directly from the clinical workflow — not as a separate task. The centre uses Surveyxact’s reminder function combined with internal procedures to follow up when a client hasn't responded, which protects both data quality and clinical accountability.
The result is a single data source that serves two purposes simultaneously: individual treatment decisions for each client, and aggregate documentation for funders, member organisations and authorities. The centre no longer chooses between clinical depth and reporting requirements — the same data answers both.
Results
- Unified clinical overview available before the first client conversation — replacing fragmented intake from multiple sources.
- Four measurement points across the treatment journey: intake, end of treatment, and follow-up at 2 and 12 months.
- Visual traffic-light module converts clinical measurements into a shared clinician–client view.
- API integration between Surveyxact and the centre's case management system — questionnaires are triggered as part of the workflow, not as a separate task.
- Same data source supports both individual treatment decisions and reporting to funders and authorities.
"This isn't just an evaluation system — it's a tool that supports our clinical practice and strengthens the relationship with the client."
— Brian Sebens, Head of Treatment, Center for Ludomani
FAQ
How does Center for Ludomani use Surveyxact in treatment?
Center for Ludomani uses Surveyxact as a client evaluation system integrated with their clinical case management system via API. Clients complete questionnaires at four points — before treatment, at end of treatment, and at follow-ups 2 and 12 months later. The data is used both inside therapy sessions as part of the conversation, and as documentation for funders and authorities.
What is the traffic-light module?
The traffic-light module is a custom visualisation built into Center for Ludomani's Surveyxact setup. It translates each measured clinical dimension — wellbeing, mental state, financial pressure, and others — into a single colour: green for stability, yellow for attention, red for urgent attention. The overview is shared between clinician and client to create a common language for change.
Can data-driven evaluation strengthen the therapeutic relationship?
Yes. Center for Ludomani's experience shows that when data is used inside the conversation rather than as documentation alone, clients experience that their answers are heard and engagement in treatment increases. The questionnaires become part of the treatment rather than a bureaucratic add-on, which strengthens motivation and the therapeutic alliance.
Can a similar system be used by other treatment organisations?
The principles transfer to many treatment and counselling settings: a clear overview before the first conversation, a strong clinician–client alliance, and data used in a way that makes sense for both practitioner and the person being helped. The specific configuration was built for gambling addiction treatment, but the architecture — API integration, visual overview, longitudinal follow-up — applies broadly.
Key takeaways
