Using quality measures and measurement-based care to improve behavioral health care for Veterans and service members

Abstract: Community-based organizations that provide behavioral health (BH) care to veterans, service members, and their families need to ensure that the care being delivered is high-quality and effective, and that it aligns with recommended care. Although these organizations provide needed services, they might not systematically evaluate the quality and the impact of the care that they provide. The aim of this report is to introduce two related but distinct approaches to assessing and improving BH care: using quality measures and measurement-based care (MBC). Using quality measures is an organizational process in which defined measures are used to assess care delivery for a group of patients. In contrast, MBC is a clinical process in which a provider routinely assesses an individual patient’s outcomes, monitors changes in outcomes over time, and engages the patient in using this information to adjust treatment. Although large organizations that serve military populations—such as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs—have made robust efforts in both areas, community-based organizations could find additional guidance useful to inform how to initiate using quality measures or implement MBC, or to expand their current efforts in these areas. In this report, the authors introduce each of these approaches, present a proposed core set of quality measures that could be useful in initiating ongoing monitoring of BH care quality, and outline key considerations for using MBC that might support community-based organizations' efforts to assess and improve the BH care that they provide.