In my continued report from NRI's State Mental Health Agency Services Research, Program Evaluation and Policy in DC i am listening to the presentation, Design, Development and Implementation of a Cross-Agency Behavioral Assessment System for Children and Adolescents by Betty Walton and Sue Lummus.
For Indiana there has been a change the use of assessment tools for funding to clinical decision making, quality management, and more recently, performance based contracting.
CANS assessment (Common Assessment took Across Child Service Systems). This system provides automated data entry, as well as simple assessment and management reports. Version 2 (in development) is increasing the number of reports that are to be available. In design it focused on being:
6 key characteristics of CANS
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items included because he might impact service planning
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level of item translate immediately into action
Need (0-no need, 1-watch/prevent, 2-act, 3-immediate action)
Strength (0-center piece, 1-useful, 20identified, 3-not identified)
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about he child not the service
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descriptive ("what not why")
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30 day window to keep items "fresh"
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culturally and developmentally appropriate
While the CANS assessment is for children and youth they are rolling out an adult version so that they can use this across the age range.
Annual certification is required (on-line). This training also used to get folks familiar with the system before they get formal face-to-face training.
The importance of the data is apparent in that clinical groups are asking for it so that they can do their own QA work. Also the presenters reported that they have more interest in using the technology (web sites) than they can support. [This is a really great outcome when compared to many other automated systems in mental health.]