Behavioral health is undergoing a significant change with a focus on measurement-based care that treats to defined targets like other medical conditions. Primary care and specialty behavioral health practices can lead this change by moving beyond simply screening and follow-up plans to identify targets and then using validated measurement tools to assess treatment response and adjust treatment according to outcomes. Examples include the PHQ9 for depression, GAD7 for anxiety, and Vanderbilt for ADHD, etc. These tools will be applied in a systematic fashion according to guidelines and not just at the time of the initial clinical encounter. Data is entered into the registry for tracking and treatment adjustment in a stepped-care fashion to determine when and if a patient requires treatment adjustment or transfer to a higher level of care. Advancing this approach for the treatment of behavioral health conditions is a central tool for enhancing and informing population health and providing better metrics on behavioral health need and improvement.
Define best practices for measurement-based care to be successful.
List the most frequently used validated measurement tools for assessing outcomes for common behavioral health conditions.
Describe best practices in addressing outcomes metrics that are not reaching defined treat to target goals and approaches to remedy this issue.
Understand the common performance metrics associated with behavioral health conditions and how to utilize them in your practice.
Dr. Lori Raney is a board-certified psychiatrist and consultant in Denver, Colorado. She is considered a leading authority on the collaborative care model and the bidirectional integration of primary care and behavioral health. Her work focuses on service evaluation, gap analysis, and design and training of multidisciplinary teams to implement evidence-based practices to improve the identification and treatment of mental illness in the primary care setting and improve the health status of patients with serious mental illness in behavioral health settings. Her current work also includes evaluating hospitals and clinics in recognizing and developing strategies to deal with the impact of behavioral health across health care systems, including the design and implementation of integrated care in primary care practices.
