What is Feedback Informed Care or Measurement-Based Care and why is it Important?

What is Feedback Informed Care or Measurement-Based Care?

As in medicine, it is important to track “vital signs” in behavioral health.¹Practicing Feedback Informed Care helps clinicians detect improvement in their patients' progress as well as deterioration. If deterioration cannot be detected, patients do not improve.¹ Over the past 20 years there has been an increasing emphasis on “measurement-based care” (MBC). It is also known as “routine outcome monitoring”, “continuous outcome monitoring”, “feedback informed care” or “patient-reported outcomes measurement.”

MBC involves the administration of validated behavioral health measures to patients through a computerized interface, ideally at the point of service. The clinician receives a report of each patient’s total scores and item responses, along with alerts, recommendations, and trends over time. The clinician is then encouraged to review the results with the patient and may provide a report to the patient for their own use.

Why is Measurement-Based Care important?

Practicing Measurement-Based Care helps clinicians detect improvement as well as deterioration. If deterioration cannot be detected, patients do not improve. ²
Research shows that clinicians who provide feedback to their patients about their progress have better outcomes.³
Feedback can also strengthen the bond between the patient and therapist/provider and
Feedback empowers the patient with knowledge about their symptoms and progress being made in their therapy session.
Tridiuum’s assessments support Measurement-Based Care.

References

Steinfeld, B., Franklin, A., Mercer, B., Fraynt, R., & Simon G. Progress monitoring in an integrated health care system: Tracking behavioral health vital signs. Adm Policy Ment Heal Ment Heal Serv Res. 2016;43(3):369-378.
Hatfield D, McCullough L, Frantz SH, Krieger K. Do we know when our clients get worse? An investigation of therapists’ ability to detect negative client change. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy 2010; 17: 25–32.
Fortney JC, Unutzer J, Wrenn G, Pyne JM, Smith GR, Schoenbaum M, Harbin HT. A tipping point for measurement-based care. Psychiatric Services 2017; 68: 179-188.