1. Mind your assessments

Before you measure anything, think about your objectives.

What are you looking to understand, and how will you utilize the information you gather?

There is no shortage of validated, standardized mental health assessments available. Taking the time to select the ones that make the most sense for your organization and client base is key.

Be sure to consider content overlap across assessments. For example, you don’t need three questionnaires aimed at tracking symptoms of depression; one will suffice.

If you are looking to benchmark your outcomes against other providers, do your research on what industry leaders are measuring and reporting.

As a complement to your standardized assessment measures, it can be helpful to develop your own client surveys. Doing so will allow you to dig deeper into the areas that are particularly important to your practice.

2. Boost client engagement

Let’s be honest. No one enjoys taking an endless number of long and tedious surveys.

If you want to maximize client participation and avoid survey fatigue, you must make the experience as simple and convenient as possible.

Think through not only the length of time a series of assessments will take but also the cadence with which you administer them. For example, certain assessments might only need to be taken pre- and post-treatment, while others may be given on a more frequent basis.

Whenever possible, ask clients to complete their assessments while they are in your office. Doing so will improve participation rates immensely.

Last but not least, be transparent about your goals. Most clients really appreciate an objective approach to outcome measurement. Once they understand the purpose of your assessments, they will likely be more mindful about their participation.

3. Streamline the process

When it comes to implementation, think through the flow of data through your organization – from the point a client is given an assessment, to where it gets analyzed and scored, and finally to how it will be shared with and used by your team.

The no-brainer here: go digital and automate.

These days, many EMR systems offer survey functionality, allowing you to schedule and send assessments to your clients either through a portal or via email.

You can also opt to partner with an online assessment platform provider. Doing so might offer more options for survey design, administration, and analysis. Of course, this will also come at an additional cost.

Either option will save you a lot of time in regard to data collection, scoring and assessing trend lines at the client level.

4. See the big picture and always be improving

From a treatment standpoint, quantitative assessments offer a way to objectively track a client’s response to care. For individual clinicians, herein lies the primary purpose of outcome measurement.

For larger practices and behavioral health centers, understanding aggregate performance is also very important. To that end, having a dedicated resource who is tasked with synthesizing data across clients and providers over time is very helpful.

Note that this exercise need not be time-intensive, and you don’t need to get fancy with advanced statistics, at least not right away! Examining both the clinical and statistical significance of change over time is a key start.

What’s most important is the commitment to regular outcome measurement with well-validated assessment tools that can be utilized effectively for not only reporting purposes but also informing and refining interventions.