Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #116316

Marilyn C. Daley, PhD, Schneider Institute for Health Policy, Brandeis University, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, P.O. Box 9110, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02454-9110, 781-736-3906, daley@brandeis.edu and Donald S. Shepard, PhD, Schneider Institute for Health Policy, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University, MS 035, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02454-9110.

The presentation will explore innovative ways to improve the quality of treatment for low income general assistance (GA) clients who received treatment under the state of Connecticut's managed behavioral health program. In October, 2001, the CT Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) initiated a quality improvement program, which included performance measures, provider profiling and incentives. Performance standards focused on four areas : (1) enhancing continuity of care; (2) avoiding rapid readmissions; (3) promoting effective discharge planning and (4) increasing referrals to a case management program for clients with severe disorders. Beginning in 2001, specific criteria for performance were written into the contracts of the 452 providers (sites) who provide drug and alcohol treatment to 25,000 GA clients. Written profiles were mailed to each provider so they could compare their performance to that of other providers in their region and level of care. This presentation will evaluate state treatment records from FY2000 to FY2003 (one year pre and two years post-intervention) of this program to answer the following questions: (1) Controlling for other factors, did performance improve on any of these four criteria after October 2001? (2) Which of the four performance measures were most likely to motivate improvement ? (3) What types of treatment programs were most likely to improve? (4) How was this accomplished? Given the difficulty of improving the quality of treatment services in an era of shrinking state budgets, the findings of this study should have valuable implications for policy and practice.

Learning Objectives: At the end of the session, the participant should be able to

(
• discuss the value of performance measurement, profiling, feedback and incentives as quality improvement tools; (
• identify several common performance measures/quality indicators that are used in treatment systems; (3)evaluate whether performance measurement has had a beneficial effect on the quality of treatment.

Keywords: Drug Abuse Treatment, Performance Measures

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.