Cited by 606Health Policy Implementation SciencePsychotherapy Techniques and ApplicationsPsychiatric care and mental health services

Implementing Measurement-Based Care in Behavioral Health: A Review

Open access
Lewis, Cara C., Boyd, Meredith, Puspitasari, Ajeng, Navarro, Elena, Howard, Jacqueline, Kassab, Hannah, Hoffman, Mira, Scott, Kelli +4 more·2019·JAMA Psychiatry

Abstract

Importance: Measurement-based care (MBC) is the systematic evaluation of patient symptoms before or during an encounter to inform behavioral health treatment. Despite MBC's demonstrated ability to enhance usual care by expediting improvements and rapidly detecting patients whose health would otherwise deteriorate, it is underused, with typically less than 20% of behavioral health practitioners integrating it into their practice. This narrative review addresses definitional issues, offers a concrete and evaluable operationalization of MBC fidelity, and summarizes the evidence base and utility of MBC. It also synthesizes the extant literature's characterization of barriers to and strategies for supporting MBC implementation, sustainment, and scale-up. Observations: Barriers to implementing MBC occur at multiple levels: patient (eg, concerns about confidentiality breach), practitioner (eg, beliefs that measures are no better than clinical judgment), organization (eg, no resources for training), and system (eg, competing requirements). Implementation science-the study of methods to integrate evidence-based practices such as MBC into routine care-offers strategies to address barriers. These strategies include using measurement feedback systems, leveraging local champions, forming learning collaboratives, training leadership, improving expert consultation with clinical staff, and generating incentives. Conclusions and Relevance: This narrative review, informed by implementation science, offers a 10-point research agenda to improve the integration of MBC into clinical practice: (1) harmonize terminology and specify MBC's core components; (2) develop criterion standard methods for monitoring fidelity and reporting quality of implementation; (3) develop algorithms for MBC to guide psychotherapy; (4) test putative mechanisms of change, particularly for psychotherapy; (5) develop brief and psychometrically strong measures for use in combination; (6) assess the critical timing of administration needed to optimize patient outcomes; (7) streamline measurement feedback systems to include only key ingredients and enhance electronic health record interoperability; (8) identify discrete strategies to support implementation; (9) make evidence-based policy decisions; and (10) align reimbursement structures.

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Crossref · 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.3329

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  • MBC has been associated with multi-faceted clinical benefits, including greater retention, engagement, and therapeutic alliances during treatment with better patient outcomes that occur more quickly and last longer than traditional care.

    “MBC has been associated with multi-faceted clinical benefits, including greater retention, engagement, and therapeutic alliances during treatment with better patient outcomes that occur more quickly and last longer than traditional care (14-19).”

    From Initial insights from a quality improvement initiative to develop an evidence-informed young adult substance use program (2022) · cites this paper as [14]

    In “Effectiveness of MBC Over Usual Care” (page unavailable), the review reports better outcomes than usual care and faster symptom improvement in youth. “Mechanisms of Action for MBC” (page unavailable) describes enhanced engagement as suggested by qualitative work, but calls therapeutic alliance a hypothesis requiring investigation. The cited passages do not establish greater retention or that benefits last longer than with usual care. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Fewer than 20% of mental health practitioners use MBC consistently, and only 5% implement it at the recommended frequency.

    “fewer than 20% of mental health practitioners use it consistently, and only 5% implement it at the recommended frequency [19]”

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1 of the 90 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [86]Glasziou PP, Buchan H, Del Mar C, Pay for performance: how to make it worth doing. BMJ 2012; 345(7870): 22– 25.

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Authors
Lewis, C. C., Boyd, M., Puspitasari, A., Navarro, E., Howard, J., Kassab, H., Hoffman, M., Scott, K., Lyon, A., Douglas, S., Simon, G., & Kroenke, K.
Affiliations
  • Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (US)
  • University of California, Los Angeles (US)
  • Mayo Clinic (US)
  • Indiana University Bloomington (US)
  • Ohio University (US)
  • West Virginia University (US)
  • Brown University (US)
  • University of Washington (US)
  • Vanderbilt University (US)
  • Regenstrief Institute (US)
Venue
JAMA Psychiatry
Published
2019-03-01
Volume
76
Issue
3
Pages
324
ISSN
2168-622X (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2904026243
Cited by
605
References
90
Citations by year
2026: 91 · 2025: 97 · 2024: 110 · 2023: 80 · 2022: 75 · 2021: 92 · 2020: 49 · 2019: 11
FWCI
6.87
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • JAMA Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
National Institute of Mental Health (F31MH111134, R01MH103310)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Policy Implementation Science
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychiatric care and mental health services
Keywords
measurement-based care, behavioral health, implementation barriers, implementation fidelity, psychotherapy, electronic health records interoperability, learning collaborative, local champions, reimbursement policy
MeSH terms
Mental Disorders, Humans, Mental Health Services, Treatment Outcome

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