A National Quality Improvement Collaborative for the clinical use of outcome measurement in specialised mental healthcare: results from a parallel group design and a nested cluster randomised controlled trial.

Abstract

BackgroundAlthough the importance and advantages of measurement-based care in mental healthcare are well established, implementation in daily practice is complex and far from optimal.AimsTo accelerate the implementation of outcome measurement in routine clinical practice, a government-sponsored National Quality Improvement Collaborative was initiated in Dutch-specialised mental healthcare.MethodTo investigate the effects of this initiative, we combined a matched-pair parallel group design (21 teams) with a cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) (6 teams). At the beginning and end, the primary outcome ‘actual use and perceived clinical utility of outcome measurement’ was assessed.ResultsIn both designs, intervention teams demonstrated a significant higher level of implementation of outcome measurement than control teams. Overall effects were large (parallel group d=0.99; RCT d=1.25).ConclusionsThe National Collaborative successfully improved the use of outcome measurement in routine clinical practice.Declaration of interestNone.Copyright and usage© The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2017. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license.