Quality Measures For Mental Health And Substance Use: Gaps, Opportunities, And Challenges
Abstract
Following up on its Crossing the Quality Chasm report, in 2006 the Institute of Medicine issued a report that included sweeping recommendations to improve the quality of behavioral health care in the United States. To date, few of those recommendations have been implemented, and there is little evidence that behavioral health care quality has improved significantly over the past ten years. However, the advent of health care reform, parity of insurance coverage, and growing recognition of the impact of behavioral health disorders on population health and health care costs have created new demands and opportunities for expanded and innovative strategies to assess the quality of care for this patient population. We provide an overview of the current state of quality measurement in behavioral health, identify key priorities for measure development, and describe the most important challenges. We recommend a coordinated plan that would boost investment in developing, evaluating, and implementing behavioral health quality measures; conduct research to develop the evidence necessary to support a more robust set of measures; overcome barriers to the improvement and linking of data sources; and expand efforts to build the capacity of the clinical workforce, in partnership with consumers, to improve quality.
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Quality of mental health care lags well behind that found in physical health care.
“Quality of mental health care lags well behind that found in physical health care. 212”
From The Lancet Psychiatry Commission on youth mental health (2024) · cites this paper as [212]
Mental health care quality is poor and improves more slowly than general medical care quality.
“The level of mental health quality of care is poor and the rate of improvement is slow compared to general medical conditions 26 .”
From Measuring and improving the quality of mental health care: a global perspective (2018) · cites this paper as [26]
Many mental health care quality measures are not linked to existing data sources, which mostly rely on claims data rather than electronic health records or electronically reported patient outcomes.
“Currently, many mental health care quality measures are not linked to existing data sources, which mostly rely on claims data rather than data derived from electronic health records or electronicallyreported patient outcomes 26,65 .”
From Measuring and improving the quality of mental health care: a global perspective (2018) · cites this paper as [26]
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The Lancet Psychiatry Commission on youth mental health
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- Authors
- Pincus, H. A., Scholle, S. H., Spaeth-Rublee, B., Hepner, K. A., & Brown, J.
- Affiliations
- NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital (US)
- National Committee for Quality Assurance (US)
- Brigitta Spaeth-Rublee is a research associate and program manager at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, in New York City.
- RAND Corporation (US)
- Mathematica Policy Research (US)
- Venue
- Health Affairs
- Publisher
- Health Affairs Publishing, LLC
- Published
- 2016-06
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1000-1008
- ISSN
- 0278-2715 (ISSN-L)
- 1544-5208
- OpenAlex
- W2411284109
- Cited by
- 82
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 13.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Health Affairs (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (UL1TR000040)
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Healthcare Quality and Management
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Primary Care and Health Outcomes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychiatric care and mental health services
- Keywords
- quality metrics, behavioral health services, mental health, substance use disorders, quality of care, measurement development, health care reform, data linkage, consumer involvement, Institute of Medicine recommendations
- MeSH terms
- Mental Disorders, Humans, Mental Health Services, Quality of Health Care, United States, Outcome Assessment, Health Care, Health Care Reform, Substance-Related Disorders
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