Implementing Measurement-Based Care (MBC) for Mental Health in a Paediatric Hospital Setting
Authors: Monga Suneeta , Kapila Shivali , Anthony Samantha , Knight Andrea , El Tal Tala , Solomon Rachel , Fischer Jason , Saunders Natasha 
Published: January 2024

Introduction: Measurement-Based Care (MBC) is the routine, systematic use of validated measures (e.g., patient-reported outcome measures [PROMs]) before or during clinical encounters to inform treatment decision-making. A large body of evidence, including randomized controlled trials, suggest that MBC outperforms usual care in response to treatment, remission rates, time to response and remission for individuals with depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions. MBC is a standard of care for most chronic conditions (e.g., diabetes, hypertension, asthma), however, it is underutilized in pediatric mental healthcare, despite well documented benefits and feasibility.  As part of the hospital’s broader mandate to better integrate physical and mental healthcare, the MBC implementation team set out to develop an MBC system for evaluation of mental health concerns across the hospital with the goal to facilitate monitoring and response of mental health metrics at the patient, provider, organizational, and system levels.

Methods: An environmental scan was conducted to understand the priority areas for health systems’ improvement. Stakeholders engaged in the process were physician leaders, clinical operational directors, clinical staff, Youth and Family Advisory Panel members across hospital departments. The environmental scan and follow-up focus groups (n=57) highlighted the need to prioritize implementation of standardized mental assessment tools hospital-wide for patients at each health system encounter as part of a vision to deliver holistic, integrated care and improve quality of patient care. Early identification of mental health needs of patients across the hospital and the importance of establishing standardized metrics for common mental health conditions were additional key priorities. Hospital surveys highlighted anxiety and depression as the top mental health concerns across the hospital. An extensive review was conducted to identify validated tools available and to understand implementation best practices.

Learnings: Learnings from our review pointed to some key factors for successful implementation.  These included the need for tools that are brief and easy to use, are validated and sensitive to change, are user friendly and visually appealing for the pediatric population and are integrated into the electronic health record with appropriate decision support tools to enable real time review. The need for extensive patient and provider education about the value of MBC and its implementation was also a key learning.

 

Work in progress & next steps: Work is underway to map out clinical workflows, including ensuring a timely response to results, addressing implementation challenges such as virtual vs. in-person tool completion, and managing accessibility of sensitive data to the patient or their proxy in the electronic health record. Workflows will take an integrated, holistic care approach, whereby, a patient’s care team will action appropriate interventions based on a standardized algorithm that engages an interdisciplinary care team.  Voxe, an external, patient-friendly platform to administer the two chosen assessment tools will be trialed. Discussions are underway with Information Management and Technology teams to integrate Voxe and clinical workflows in the hospital’s electronic health record. Evaluation of implementation of MBC in clinical settings will consider both process and outcome measures such as uptake, timely receipt of services, and clinical response.