Data-driven approaches to care delivery: Actionable informatics in the DoD's primary care behavioral health program

Transforming administrative health care data into meaningful metrics has been critical to the implementation of the Department of Defense's Primary Care Behavioral Health (PCBH) program.

Data from clinical encounters with PCBH providers are used to develop metrics of program performance collaboratively. Metrics focus on describing the PCBH program and patients, provider fidelity to the model, and provider performance. These metrics form two key deliverables: a monitoring dashboard for program managers and a training dashboard for expert trainers conducting site visits.

Behavioral health consultants (BHCs) conducted nearly 200,000 encounters with more than 100,000 unique patients in fiscal year 2019 at more than 170 locations in 6 countries and 37 states. Administrative data derived from these encounters were used to create a variety of metrics that describe practice and performance at both the provider and program levels. These metrics are delivered through a variety of analytic products to stakeholders who use that information to make data-driven decisions about program direction and provider training.

We discuss examples of program management decisions and expert trainer actions based on these dashboards, highlighting the benefits of continued collaboration between analysts and program managers. Specifically, excerpts from several dashboards illustrate how penetration and productivity metrics yield specific, tailored action plans to improve care delivery and provider performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).