Setting Measurement-Based Care in Motion: Practical Lessons in the Implementation and Integration of Measurement-Based Care in Psychiatry Clinical Practice

Kristin Martin-Cook,1 Lucy Palmer,1 Larry Thornton,1 A John Rush,2 Carol A Tamminga,1 Hicham M Ibrahim1 1Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA; 2National University of Singapore, Singapore; Department of Psychiatry, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, Midland, TX, USACorrespondence: Kristin Martin-CookDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd, Dallas, TX, 75235, USATel +1-214-648-1983Fax +1-214-648-4947Email Kristin.Martin-Cook@UTSouthwestern.eduAbstract: Measurement-based care (MBC) involves the systematic use of standardized measurements to inform treatment decisions. MBC can enhance clinical decision-making and quality of care by prompting personalized changes in treatment based on measured patient outcomes. MBC can also promote more precise communications between patients and clinicians around individual patient care. While commonly employed in psychiatric clinical research, the use of MBC in everyday practice can be complicated by clinic operations and variability across patients. We implemented MBC in the UT Southwestern Psychiatry Multispecialty Outpatient Clinic during the expansion of our general psychiatry clinic and subspecialty targeted programs. This article describes the top 10 lessons we learned as we confronted practical obstacles around implementing the ideals of MBC into a pre-existing, busy psychiatric clinical practice and how doing so impacts care, provider engagement, patient engagement, and research opportunity.Keywords: measurement-based care, clinic operations, quality improvement, quality care, screening, outpatient