Quality Assurance Professionals in Mental Health Organizations

 

          Principal Investigator:  Curtis McMillen, PhD, PI

          Funder: CMHSR funded pilot (through NIMH - P30 MH068579)

          Timeframe: 08/06-07/08

          Affiliation: Center for Mental Health Services Research (CMHSR)

Project Staff:  Luis E. Zayas Rivera, PhD, Investigator
                        Madeline Lee, MSW, NIMH Pre-Doctoral Trainee
                        Samantha Books, MPE, Field Coordinator

                                              

Project Contact:  Samantha Books
                             Office Phone: (314) 935-9545
                             E-mail: sbooks@gwbmail.wustl.edu

                               

Project Update as of 10/20/06:
Stage: Planned for future implementation.

 

Description:

Driven by accreditation requirements, mental health organizations have hired personnel in quality assurance (QA) positions to assist and sometimes direct their organizations' efforts to ensure quality services.  If mental health organizations are to provide high quality services that facilitate recovery from mental disorder, the quality assurance workforce will need to be powerful agents of change within their organizations.  Among many other tasks, well trained QA professionals working in tandem with administrators can identify high and low performing work units, units with high or low fidelity to practice standards, units with high or low consumer satisfaction, units with unsatisfactory safety problems, units with low morale, and provide data related to the success of targeted quality improvement efforts.  But almost nothing is knowing about the professional backgrounds of the QA workforce, the skill sets this workforce possesses to address quality concerns, the activities in which they engage to drive quality improvement efforts and the receptivity of the organizations in which they work to QA efforts.

Research Objectives:

This research project aims to address the following questions about the nature of quality assurance work in mental health organizations:

1. In what activities are quality assurance professionals engaged in order to ensure high quality of mental health care of patients

2.  How are quality assurance professionals prepared to work in a quality assurance role?

3.  What challenges do quality assurance professionals face in facilitating delivery of quality of care to patients?