Measurement-Based Care Changing Treatment Experience for Patients & Providers
By Dr. Michael Genovese, Chief Medical Officer – Acadia Healthcare
As behavioral healthcare professionals, we want to provide each patient with optimal care to achieve the best possible outcomes.
That’s always been a noble goal, but it often looks better on paper than it turns out in practice. Our country’s healthcare system can turn even the seemingly straightforward act of seeking a scientifically accurate diagnosis into a time-consuming, cost-prohibitive chore.
Even after taking that first step, the process of receiving treatment for a mental health disorder can be confusing — and it can significantly differ based on the practice, the provider, and the patient’s insurance coverage.
Acadia Healthcare is one of the nation’s largest behavioral healthcare providers. With hundreds of facilities across the country assisting thousands of individuals in a given year, we can’t risk treating our patients like they’re simply a number. To maintain our status as an industry leader, we needed to find a solution to the treatment experience that gave our medical professionals and our patients some concrete answers about their care.
To do this, we partnered with Mindyra, a medical software company that has developed a suite of proprietary behavioral health tools to help providers more effectively and systematically screen, diagnose, build treatment plans for, and track patients’ progress.
An Opportunity to Provide Data-Driven Care
Gathering as much data as possible on the front end doesn’t just allow healthcare professionals to tailor treatment to the patient who is providing that information. It helps us collect points of statistical evidence that provide actionable insights in order to benefit future patients.
Each person is unique, but by systematically collecting patient data, Mindyra applies machine learning to optimize treatment plan selection for each individual.
Here’s an overview of how it works:
- Patient-administered test. Patients can self-complete or have a clinician assist them in completing proprietary and public domain tests.
- Customized care plan. The provider will develop a specific treatment strategy based on the data collected from the test, which uses results from proprietary measures and information about evidence-based interventions to help formulate the best possible administration of care.
- Measure progress. During treatment, regular progress surveys allow us to see how patients are improving from both symptom and functioning perspectives.
- Continually analyze data. Large data sets across time yield the most meaningful insights, leading to the most effective care possible.
A Move to Cloud-Based Technology
Measurement-based care is not necessarily a new concept. But many previous incarnations of data analysis and outcome studies stemmed from data clinicians gathered from simple pencil and paper forms.
It’s not to say that data was incorrect, but shifting to a platform like Mindyra’s allows us to eliminate human error and utilize a much more time-friendly approach without impeding the workflow of our doctors, nurses, and therapists. This cloud-based technology gives clinicians the information they need to best help each patient, provides a way to assess patients across various facilities consistently. Also, it gives Acadia, as a whole, a vast array of data points to begin to gauge improvements to our processes over the years to come.
It seems obvious, but the most effective outcome studies are the ones with the most outcomes studied.
The Benefits for Providers & Patients
At Acadia Healthcare, we look at the benefits of data-driven care on both a macro and a micro-level.
When zooming out a bit, these outcomes studies will help us take a big-picture look at how we’re treating patients. But we’ll also be able to take a more intimate look at how one of our hospitals compares with another, how we’re faring against other industry benchmarks, and how we can implement educational processes to provide better care.
All this information is available to those at our corporate level and to the clinicians providing care. Those on-the-ground providers see summarized, automated, real-time results in a graphical report of what a patient’s symptoms look like.
From an administrative standpoint, we can get a bird’s-eye view of our facilities. What proportion of patients is improving? What does compliance look like in terms of test completion rates? How long does it take a patient to finish an assessment?
Patients can also view their test results through an online dashboard that encourages discussion with their clinician. That transparency stays true throughout treatment, from admission to progress reports and, ultimately, discharge.
We have mountains of evidence that if you share with patients the progress, they’re making — or even not making — it can have a significant effect in producing positive outcomes. Showing them real-time results on a computer or tablet during treatment can truly be a game-changer.
Where We Go from Here
Think of these assessments as the data-driven equivalent of a primary care physician ordering lab work. Much like collecting samples to measure the physiological functioning of different organs in your body, these tests allow objective, repetitive measures to determine how patients are doing relative to their symptoms and level of functioning.
Mindyra’s technology allows clinicians to adapt testing protocols based on the populations they’re working with. For instance, you would ask different questions to patients who are entering an acute care facility versus those who are beginning residential treatment. The Mindyra platform provides the flexibility to offer a more clinical-driven evaluation for acute care and a more patient-focused assessment for residential or specialty facilities.
From there, we continue to gather information. We continue to measure outcomes at the intersection of healthcare and technology. We continue to provide better clinical care through a collaborative effort between the treatment team and patient. And if we trust the data and evolve with what we discover, we continue to deliver data-driven answers that change our patients’ lives for the better.