Putting patients first is an ethical responsibility in modern healthcare. That’s why measurement-based care (MBC) is crucial. For mental health organizations, MBC involves using standardized tools to collect data about how clients are feeling. This data is then used to inform treatment adjustments and monitor progress, facilitating personalized, high-quality care.
Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are a key to MBC, bringing the clients’ perspective into clinical decisions. Learn how you can integrate PROs to enhance the care your practice provides.
What Are PROs?
PROs refer to information about a client’s health as reported by the client. This can include how the individual perceives their symptoms, how satisfied they are with their care, and how their treatment or condition impacts their quality of life. Standardized surveys and questionnaires, known as PRO measures (PROMs), are used to collect and measure this data.
While clinician-reported outcome measures have typically informed practices and policies, such methods only tell part of the story. PROMs offer valuable insight into what clients are experiencing. This is information that traditional assessments might miss. By understanding these perspectives, your organization can provide patient-centered care and improve mental health outcomes.
There are two main categories of PROMs — generic and disease-specific. Generic PROMs assess various factors, allowing clinicians to understand the overall quality of care and a client’s well-being. Disease-specific PROMs focus on specific aspects of a particular condition, how they impact the client and the effectiveness of treatments targeting the condition. When assessing PROs, it’s best to use both measures together for a well-rounded understanding.
A few commonly used PROMs in mental healthcare include:
- PHQ-9: The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) measures depressive symptoms.
- GAD-7: The Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7 (GAD-7) assesses client-reported experiences of generalized anxiety.
- CCSM-5: The DSM-5 Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure (CCSM-5) screens for a range of symptoms using PRO data, from anxiety and depression to sleep disorders and memory problems.
- PROMIS: The Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) offers patient-centered tools to assess and observe physical, mental and social health.
What Are the Benefits of Using PROs in Clinical Practice?
Using PROs in clinical practice offers various benefits, including:
Improved Patient-Provider Communication
PROs can facilitate more open and honest conversations, build a stronger therapeutic bond and help mental health professionals better understand what their clients are going through.
For example, filling out a PROM can make individuals more likely to share important issues. These topics can then be discussed during therapy sessions.
Collecting and assessing PROs also encourages clinicians and clients to work together, setting treatment goals and checking in on progress. This can foster trust and enhance the patient experience, making them more inclined to adhere to their treatment plan.
Better Monitoring of Treatment Progress
PROs enable providers to monitor a client’s progress more effectively, or lack thereof, during their care. When administered repeatedly, these questionnaires and surveys create a record of treatment responses — changes in PROM scores indicate the effect of a treatment on an individual’s well-being.
It’s important to note that PRO data doesn’t replace a clinician’s expertise or a client’s lived experience. Instead, it enhances clinical judgment by providing objective information. Mental health professionals can use this data to confirm their own insights, identify areas for improvement and guide their discussions with clients.
Enhanced Treatment Planning and Decision-Making
As everyone is different, care should be tailored to their unique needs. Having clients complete a mental health assessment, like the GAD-7 and PHQ-9, before their first visit can provide the necessary information to develop highly personalized therapy plans. The more you customize a client’s plan, the better their chances of staying involved in their care and achieving the outcomes they’re hoping for.
PROs also allow therapists, counselors and psychiatrists to deliver data-driven care by offering valuable insights that inform treatment decisions. For example, if a client’s anxiety score remains high after a few weeks of treatment, providers may consider changing the approach. Collecting PROs from multiple clients also makes identifying trends and patterns in your practice easier. This can help you determine which treatments work best for specific patient groups.
Increased Patient Engagement and Satisfaction
Clients need a thorough understanding of their condition to become active participants. Since PROMs promote communication between providers and their patients, these tools can reveal gaps in education or health literacy. Addressing these gaps equips clients with the knowledge to make better choices, leading to increased engagement.
As PROs are a valuable form of patient feedback, you can also use them to gauge how satisfied clients are with your organization’s services. Patient satisfaction and treatment effectiveness are two closely linked key performance indicators — clients who experience positive mental health outcomes will be happier with their providers.
How to Successfully Integrate PROs Into Your Practice
With so many benefits, PROs are becoming more widely implemented. Here’s how to integrate them into your practice:
1. Choose the Right PROMs
Using the wrong PROMs can lead to unusable data and waste your organization’s time, effort and resources. To choose the right outcome measurement tool:
- Think about your audience: Do you need to survey all your clients or only those diagnosed with depression? Generic PROMs are designed for the general population, whereas disease-specific PROMs are intended for individuals with a particular condition.
- Determine what you need to measure: PROMs can also be either domain-specific or global. The former focuses on specific aspects of a person’s mental health, such as fatigue, cognitive functioning or how a symptom affects their life. Conversely, the latter asks about overall mental well-being or combines various specific domains into one summary score.
Based on the above, PROMs can be:
- Disease-specific and domain-specific
- Disease-specific and global
- Generic and global
- Generic and domain-specific
2. Integrate PROs Into Your Clinical Workflow
Some clinicians are concerned that implementing PROMs and the broader MBC approach could interfere with the therapy flow or take time away from clients. This isn’t the case — collecting and reviewing PRO data only takes a few minutes. But to make the process even easier and boost efficiency, it’s essential to routinely integrate PROMs with your organization’s existing workflows and systems, such as your electronic health records (EHR) or telehealth platforms.
Digital tools can automate data collection and streamline patient feedback, simplifying the implementation of PROs in your practice. For example, you could automatically send the GAD-7 to new clients seeking anxiety treatment a few days before their initial session. Or, for existing patients diagnosed with depression, you could automatically send the PHQ-9 every two weeks to monitor the severity of their symptoms and assess their response to treatment.
3. Train Staff and Educate Clients
Since MBC is not typically taught to psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals, staff must be trained to administer and interpret PROMs. To make the learning process easier, start with a single PROM or focus on a specific group of clients when first implementing PROs.
You should also educate clients about the importance of providing honest and accurate feedback. Explain PROMs and how these tools can directly benefit them. Address potential concerns, such as fear of judgment or anxiety about sharing.
4. Use PRO Data to Inform Decisions
Once you’ve collected and analyzed PRO data, you can use it to adjust treatment plans, modify therapy approaches or refer clients to other services.
As an example, let’s say you have a client with a substance use disorder who has been regularly attending counseling. Their PRO data shows that their use is decreasing, but they’re still experiencing persistent cravings. Based on this information, you could adjust treatment goals to emphasize coping skills and relapse prevention.
Why Trust Us?
Mend’s portal-free patient engagement platform is purpose-built for mental and behavioral healthcare organizations. Integrating with your EHR, it automates your workflows so that you can more easily implement PROs and an MBC approach.
Our Digital Patient Intake solution makes it quick and easy for clients to complete PROMs like PHQs and the GAD-7. We also make it effortless to analyze PRO data, enabling you to make informed decisions that improve patient outcomes. Our MBC extension monitors PROMs, turning scattered data into a clear picture of patients’ well-being. This way, you can see progress and spot concerning trends before they escalate.
The results speak for themselves — organizations that trust Mend as their partner have seen no-show rates drop to single digits. We’ve also facilitated over 20 million patient encounters with an engagement rate of 90%.
Integrate PROs Into Your Practice With Mend
PROs can transform client outcomes and experience. With Mend, you can successfully integrate this data into your practice to experience benefits such as enhanced decision-making capabilities and increased patient engagement.
Beyond offering patient engagement solutions, we’re dedicated to providing the best experience for your clients because we care about them as much as you do. Schedule a demo to discover how we empower you to deliver superior services, or call us at 866-934-2713 to learn more about our platform.
