This innovative volume presents a cogent case for quality improvement (QI) in behavioral healthcare as ethical practice, solid science, and good business. Divided between foundational concepts, key QI tools and methods, and emerging applications, it offers guidelines for raising care standards while addressing ongoing issues of treatment validity, staffing and training, costs and funding, and integration with medical systems. Expert contributors review the implications and potential of QI in diverse areas such as treatment of entrenched mental disorders, in correctional facilities, and within the professional context of the American Psychological Association. The insights, examples, and strategies featured will increase in value as behavioral health becomes more prominent in integrated care and vital to large-scale health goals. Included in the coverage: Behavioral health conditions: direct treatment costs and indirect social costs. /liliQuality improvement and clinical psychological science. · Process mapping to improve quality in behavioral health service delivery. · Checklists for quality improvement and evaluation in behavioral health. · Creating a quality improvement system for an integrated care program: the why, what, and how to measure. · Feedback Informed Treatment (FIT): improving the outcome of psychotherapy one person at a time. Quality Improvement i n Behavioral Healthcare gives health psychologists, public health professionals, and health administrators a real-world framework for maintaining quality services in a rapidly evolving health landscape.

Quality determines whether services increase the likelihood of achieving desired mental health outcomes and whether they meet the current requirements of evidence-based practice. Quality is important in all mental health systems because good quality ensures that people with mental disorders receive the care they require and that their symptoms and quality of life improve. This module sets out practical steps for the improvement of the quality of mental health care.

Informatics has the potential to transform the world of behavioral practitioners to enable them to assist people more easily. This book focuses on informatics-related topics that all disciplines connected to the behavioral health will find very useful for their day-to-day practice. This book provides an overview of the state of the art in behavioral health care informatics, addresses the challenges on the horizon, such as organizational issues, human-centered issues, educating healthcare executives about technology issues, educating clinicians about behavioral informatics systems, and consumer issues.

The purpose of this book is to be the premier resource for behavioural health clinicians who are considering adopting technology into their practice. Written by experts and policy makers in the field this book will be recognized as the gold standard. Other books currently in this field are extremely technical and are geared primarily to policy makers, researchers and informaticians. While this book will be a useful adjunct to that audience, it is primarily designed for the over .5 million behavioural health clinicians in the U.S. and the millions others around the world. Adoption of technology is slow in behavioural healthcare, and this book will enhance the adoption and utilization of various technologies in practice. I.T. vendors may also purchase this book for their customers.

Major depressive disorder is the leading cause of disabil. among adults, & suicide ranks as the second leading cause of death among those ages 10-17. In any given year, over 2 million Amer. suffer the symptoms of schizophrenia, but more than half do not receive appropriate treatment. Mental health (MH) professionals have expressed concern that educ. & training programs have not kept up with changes in health & health care over the past 15 years. As a result, those receiving care may not be benefiting from recent advances. This report focuses specifically on AHRQ-funded research that has led to the development of programs, methods, & tools for evaluating & improving the quality of MH services & improving the educ. of MH professionals. Illus.

Managed care has produced dramatic changes in the treatment of mental health and substance abuse problems, known as behavioral health. Managing Managed Care offers an urgently needed assessment of managed care for behavioral health and a framework for purchasing, delivering, and ensuring the quality of behavioral health care. It presents the first objective analysis of the powerful multimillion-dollar accreditation industry and the key accrediting organizations. Managing Managed Care draws evidence-based conclusions about the effectiveness of behavioral health treatments and makes recommendations that address consumer protections, quality improvements, structure and financing, roles of public and private participants, inclusion of special populations, and ethical issues. The volume discusses trends in managed behavioral health care, highlighting the emerging role of the purchaser. The committee explores problems of overlap and fragmentation in the delivery of behavioral health care and discusses the issue of access, a special concern when private systems are restricted and public systems overburdened. Highly applicable to the larger health care system, this volume will be of particular interest to all stakeholders in behavioral health--federal and state policymakers, public and private purchasers, health care providers and administrators, consumers and consumer advocates, accrediting organizations, and health services researchers.

For the first time in history, behavioral health providers are expected to understand and participate in activities intended to access and improve the quality of services they provide. This handbook is designed as a general resource in the field of behavioral health quality management for a very diverse group of readers, including graduate and undergraduate students, payors, purchasers and administrators within managed care organizations, public sector service system planners and managers, applied health services researchers and program evaluators. This volume provides a comprehensive context for the development of quality management (QM) in health services - behavioral health in particular - as well as an overview of tools, techniques, and programs reflecting QM in practice. It also offers perspectives on both internally- and externally-based QM activities.

Until recently, behavioral health was defined within the strict dichotomy of inpatient and outpatient care -- a dichotomy that failed to mirror the range and complexity of human experience and clinical needs. Today's integrated system renders this dichotomy obsolete. Instead, service delivery integration processes offer an organized system of care rooted in a common vision and defined by processes intended to promote continuity and quality of care, coordination of efforts, efficiencies of operation, and seamless patient movement through an otherwise bewildering array of health care services. Unique in the literature, this volume brings together distinguished clinicians and policymakers who focus on the operational aspects of developing state-of-the-art integrated delivery systems. History and concept -- Why we need integrated health care delivery systems, including a model of service delivery integration that incorporates current barriers (e.g., ambiguous roles and responsibilities and lack of strategic alignment; how to design integrated delivery systems improving clinical outcomes, achieving fiscal and operating efficiencies, and aligning clinical and fiscal incentives) Structural foundations -- Access to the system of care for patients, payors, and employers; how to design level-of-care criteria; eight strategies that help clients move along the continuum; how to define level of care in today's managed care world; and the process of following therapeutic processes (i.e., philosophies, procedures, and practices used to create or support recovery and wellness) across the continuum Administrative and management processes -- How to reorient staff toward minimizing barriers and making the patient central to the system; documentation/information management and reimbursement (rates and rate structures, risk assumption); current research and its enormous potential to improve every aspect of care; quality assessments based on examining the driving forces behind the needs for monitoring and evaluating quality and outcomes; and the relation of behavioral health care systems, which seek to fully integrate clients and families into the fabric of their community and culture, to other systems A case vignette that highlights -- from the consumer's viewpoint -- the vital role of self-help during an episode of hospitalization and a discussion of future directions in integrated behavioral health care round out this remarkable volume. With its wealth of strategic and "nuts and bolts" information -- useful for alliances and single entities alike -- on how to harness operational forces in establishing an effective integrated behavioral health continuum, this volume will be welcomed by those who deliver direct services (psychiatric professionals) and those who administer and manage the integrated financing and delivery of quality care from public (U.S. government agencies) and private (managed care and insurance providers) sectors alike.

The first book to focus on measuring the basic processes of mental healthcare, such as access, detection, treatment appropriateness, safety and continuity of care, Improving Mental Healthcare: A Guide to Measurement-Based Quality Improvement integrates practical information about quality measures -- such as their clinical logic, validity and basis in scientific evidence -- into a highly readable guide on how to implement measures and use the results to improve quality of care. Improving Mental Healthcare examines the clinical, policy, and scientific underpinnings of process measurement, a widely used method of assessing quality of mental healthcare. It describes the use of measurement to improve quality, promote accountability, encourage evidence-based practice, and shape incentives to favor delivery of high-quality care. Divided into two sections totaling 14 chapters, the first section describes factors that led to a nationwide emphasis on improving quality of care, major approaches to quality assessment, considerations in selecting measures, as well as how to analyze and interpret measure results. The second section summarizes information on more than 300 quality measures, including their clinical rationale, specifications, sources of data, supporting evidence, readiness for use, and -- where available -- data on reliability, validity, results, case-mix adjustment, standards, and benchmarks. Improving Mental Healthcare helps clinicians, managers, administrators, payers, purchasers, accreditors, consumer groups, and other stakeholders meet national mandates to assess and improve quality of care by providing the following tools and guidance: Results from the National Inventory of Mental Health Quality Measures, a federally funded study summarizing clinical, technical, and scientific properties of more than 300 process measures A user-friendly format that helps potential measure users find quality measures that reflect their priorities and meet their needs Guidance for healthcare organizations and clinicians on how to integrate measurement into a comprehensive approach to quality management An understanding of the relationship between process measurement and other approaches to quality assessment, in particular outcomes assessment-the focus of a companion guide, Outcome Measurement in Psychiatry: A Critical Review (APPI 2002) Improving Mental Healthcare, which includes extensive references as well as useful figures and tables illustrating key concepts, is essential reading for practicing clinicians, healthcare managers, medical students and psychiatric residents -- who must now meet ACGME requirements to learn about quality assessment and improvement -- as well as members of oversight organizations and consumer advocacy groups. It will prove invaluable for healthcare organizations seeking to improve quality of care, clinical training programs, and courses on quality assessment, healthcare management, and mental health policy.

Integrated care is receiving a lot of attention from clinicians, administrators, policy makers, and researchers. Given the current healthcare crises in the United States, where costs, quality, and access to care are of particular concern, many are looking for new and better ways of delivering behavioral health services. Integrating behavioral health into primary care medical settings has been shown to: (1) produce healthier patients; (2) produce medical savings; (3) produce higher patient satisfaction; (4) leverage the primary care physician’s time so that they can be more productive; and (5) increase physician satisfaction. For these reasons this is an emerging paradigm with a lot of interest and momentum. For example, the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health has recently endorsed redesigning the mental health system so that much of this is integrated into primary care medicine.