Top Takeaways to Effectively Implement Measurement-Based Care in Behavioral Health
With behavioral health at an inflection point, access to care is critical, but health care systems also need a long-term roadmap to enable quality care delivery. Today, measurement-based care (MBC) is widely accepted to be the foundation of effective behavioral health care and a driver of overall treatment success—yet fewer than 20% of behavioral health clinicians integrate it into their practice due to implementation barriers. In our white paper, we explain how Lucet’s unique approach to MBC delivers a comprehensive, holistic measure of a patient’s overall mental well-being, enabling an effective and efficient care delivery model to facilitate improved patient health outcomes.
“The structured feedback provided by our MBC tools leads to greater patient satisfaction with treatment, stronger therapeutic alliances and improved health outcomes.”
Liz Jones – VP, Clinical Strategy
The Lucet Model
The Lucet model and suite of MBC tools, which includes our proprietary Behavioral Health Index (BHI®), enables a valid, reliable, reproducible and responsive systematic evaluation of a patient’s clinical presentation and overall mental health acuity. The BHI streamlines the assessment process and provides visibility to providers regarding a patient’s overall level of acuity, ensuring that patients receive informed and effective care right from their first appointment.
Lucet’s platform supports ongoing measurement-based care throughout a patient’s treatment journey. The data collected by the BHI generates a patient-specific expected treatment curve, providing a projected change trajectory based on patients with similar clinical profiles. This predictive tool enables early intervention for non-response, facilitating timely adjustments in treatment plans. Conversely, this can be a powerful clinical tool when used with patients making significant progress in treatment.
Among additional gold-standard symptom scales, our MBC model also measures therapeutic alliance, helping clinicians engage in collaborative discussions about treatment goals and patient experiences, fostering a strong therapeutic relationship.
Since its introduction, our MBC tools have been continuously refined to ensure clinical effectiveness. Lucet’s specialized research team regularly conducts psychometric testing and reviews our platform and assessments, aligning our offerings with advancements in the field and technology to ensure that providers have the most precise and accurate MBC tools available.
Value to Patients
The comprehensive insights provided by our MBC tools lead to greater patient satisfaction with treatment, stronger therapeutic alliances and improved health outcomes. Research indicates that MBC can reduce dropout rates by 20% and enhance symptom reduction. By equipping providers with quick, informative and easy-to-interpret clinical insights, our tools can help to ensure a high-quality patient-provider connection—which is a reliable predictor of positive clinical outcomes.
Value to Providers
Our MBC toolkit and accompanying EHR integrations simplify the process for providers. Equipped with the knowledge they need to adeptly navigate and balance clinical and administrative challenges in treatment, clinicians have more free time to focus on patient clinical outcomes. These tools provide a comprehensive view of each patient’s condition and track changes over time. The branching logic in the assessments ensures relevant questions are asked, minimizing patient burden while maximizing data quality.
Value to Health Plans
For health plans, MBC can be challenging due to provider caseload mix, high variability in clinical presentation and provider variation in adoption. Lucet’s model addresses these issues with tools that support consistent measurement across patient populations and enable real-time data collection through technology integrations. Our in-the-moment risk stratification and patient matching processes ensure high-acuity patients receive immediate care, improving outcomes and potentially reducing unnecessary acute care presentations. This proactive strategy aligns with the push towards value-based care models, emphasizing better ROI, accountability and outcomes.
Liz Jones is vice president of clinical strategy at Lucet, The Behavioral Health Optimization Company.