| Session Title: Evaluating Behavioral Health Collaboratives: Finding the Value in Process Measures as Well as Outcomes |
| Multipaper Session 618 to be held in Capistrano B on Friday, Nov 4, 10:45 AM to 11:30 AM |
| Sponsored by the Social Work TIG |
| Chair(s): |
| Snigdha Mukherjee, Louisiana Public Health Institute, smukherjee@lphi.org |
| Discussant(s): |
| Snigdha Mukherjee, Louisiana Public Health Institute, smukherjee@lphi.org |
| Abstract: These presentations will offer comprehensive yet practical techniques to anyone who is currently engaged in or about to be engaged in evaluating a collaborative of non-profit service providers that are trying to expand access to behavioral healthcare services across a network. The presentations will address the design strategies and issues associated with conducting such evaluations in Southeast Louisiana-one Post-Hurricane Katrina and one Post-BP Oil Spill. The presentations will highlight key contextual factors, data management, data validation, and other analysis issues that had to be considered in determining the value and relative implications of the findings generated from these evaluations. Common logistical challenges were identified, and these challenges were further confounded with balancing realistic expectations and values of the various stakeholders. Strategies to address these challenges and how to apply our lessons learned to other communities and settings will be discussed. |
| Increasing Capacity to Evaluate Behavioral Health Integration Programs: What are We Going to Measure? |
| Chatrian Kanger, Louisiana Public Health Institute, ckanger@lphi.org |
| This session will highlight lessons learned from the evaluation of a behavioral health and primary care integration project consisting of 23 organizations and involving 300+ providers over a 2-year period. The Collaborative to Improve Behavioral Healthcare Access (CIBHA) was a quality improvement learning collaborative to support the integration of behavioral and primary healthcare and thereby increase access to services. The CIBHA evaluation needed to be comprehensive in order to fully capture evidence of indicators of integration at each of the levels where change could be expected: systems, practice, and provider. Thus, a mixed methods approach to collecting and combining information gathered from different sources, such as case study interviews, surveys, and patient-level encounter data, was utilized in order to not only monitor changes but to assess any impact of the collaborative. Strategies for addressing missing or poor quality baseline and quantitative data will be discussed. |
| Building a Model for Future Disaster Response: The Value of Process Evaluation for Sustainable Implementation |
| Lisa Gentry, Louisiana Public Health Institute, egentry@lphi.org |
| This session will address the challenges associated with evaluating a large, short-term collaborative designed to improve access to behavioral and mental health services in response to the BP oil spill. The Spirit of Hope Collaborative is a network of community-based providers and trainers whose purpose is to increase on-the-ground access to care by building organizational capacity to serve hard-to-reach populations. Using a mixed-methods approach, the evaluation team approached the project from various angles and juggled multiple stakeholder interests in the evaluation design. The ability to conduct outcome evaluation was met with some resistance due to the yearlong time frame, agencies' desire to not compromise the mission of their services, and the practical limitations of sparse or non-existent data collection prior to Spirit of Hope. This session will discuss the challenges faced with such a wide-ranging group, strategies implemented to address these challenges, and lessons learned for future endeavors. |