Data Put to Good Use

November 03, 2019

The Open Minds email this morning began with the following quote from John Naisbitt which caught my eye:

”We are drowning in information, but starving for knowledge.”

That rather perfectly describes the world in which all providers live.  In an effort to provide the information requested/required either by DBHDS or the payor of the services provided, we collect and process a lot of information.  With the increased emphasis on the development and implementation of a robust Quality Improvement plan in the DBHDS Licensing Regulations, we are producing more data with the intent that it be put to good use in improving the quality of the services. Even with expanded quality improvement efforts, it is still a challenge to identify what information that we already have can be put to the best use in determining the future for our organizations.  First, we have to ask ourselves, what exactly do we want to know:

• Which efforts are most successful in retaining DSPs?
• What is the cost relative to the revenue of service X?
• Are we implementing the HCBS rights at all levels?
• Do we know how effective the clinical services that we provide in any of the CMHRS are?
• Do we realistically test and implement (if needed) our Emergency Preparedness plan?
• And the biggest question of all – do we use the data we already collect in a meaningful way?

There are, as you might guess, a thousand more questions!  VNPP can help with some . . . The post from yesterday spoke to efforts that we will make to assist providers in developing and implementing Emergency Preparedness Plans.  And, We met at the Conference about expanding the use of the DLA-20 for behavioral health services.  In the near future, we will be sending out a specific query about training needs, and will also see if there is additional interest in sharing how those providers who are already using the DLA-20 tool are collecting and using the data. In the meantime, if you are interested in having staff trained, please let us know so we can get training scheduled.  If we have sufficient interest, we can also explore another “Train-the-Trainer” session!