2nd Australasian Mental Health Outcomes Conference

The 2nd Australasian Mental Health Outcomes Conference was held on 24 – 26 November 2008 and provided an opportunity to share the results of the implementation of routine outcome measurement in Australia’s specialist mental health services and to showcase the use of outcome measures to support clinical practice and foster quality improvement and service development activities.

The conference theme was “Touching Ground: Innovations and Practice” which acknowledged the ongoing developmental work that has been undertaken in both Australia and New Zealand to establish systems of routine outcome measurement in mental health services. Papers presented at the conference are available below and are organised according to the main conference program streams.

Pre-conference Workshops

Tim Coombs Angie Hunter Creswell Surrao - How can we ensure the quality of training and support the use of outcome measurement in mental health?

Hine Martin - Issues and challenges in using outcome information to improve mental health services for Indigenous populations.

Kathy Stapley - Issues and challenges in using outcome information to improve mental health services for Indigenous populations.

Katie Weedon - What's the story? Consumer and carer use and understanding of outcomes information.

Plenary Sessions

Harvey Whiteford - Transparency and accountability in health care: What is the role of mental health outcomes in mental health reform?

Sarah Gordon - Táku Reo Táku Mauri Ora: From development to implementation.

Michael Lambert - Why is it essential for clinicians to monitor patient treatment response and how to do it?

Alastair Macdonald - Lessons learned from introducing routine outcome measurement in a UK service.

Clinical Utility

Mark Smith - Developing a utility focus for outcome measurement in New Zealand.

Regina McDonald - Why don't you get the doctors to do the HoNOS?

Jamie Ryan - Using outcome measures to inform care planning with consumers.

Malcolm Stewart - Making the HoNOS clinically useful - Pres 1.

Malcolm Stewart - Making the HoNOS clinically useful - Pres 2.

Malcolm Stewart - Making the HoNOS clinically useful - Pres 3.

Individual Focus

Jocelyn Byrd - Integrated care pathway (ICP) for people referred to mental health services with moderate to severe depression.

Melissa Casey - The Devlopmental Neuropsychiatry Program (DNP).

Aaron Wiggins - Observation of treatment and outcomes for adolescents presenting with depressive disorders or symptoms to a regional child and adolescent mental health service over a three month period.

Marg Jones - Self harm presentations to hospitals in West Australian 0-18 year olds: What can outcome measure profiles add to the understanding of trajectory?

Andrew Page - Symposium: Monitoring mental health innovations.

Elizabeth Newnham - Improving patient outcomes by monitoring wellbeing and providing feedback during inpatient and day patient therapy.

Geoff Hooke - An innovative touchscreen-based patient monitoring system.

Service Focus

Rosemary Lawton - Consumers' experience of outcome measures in a CAMHS context.

Peter Brann - The canary in the coalmine.

Tim Coombs - Clinical significance and the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS family of measures: what does it mean?

David Smith - Creating buy-in into new initiatives in outcome measurement: an implementation methodology.

Lucy Laphen - Growing a quality outcomes culture.

Terena Slattery - Clinical utility of HoNOS in an inpatient setting.

Tom Trauer - Are HoNOS scores related to length of stay in acute inpatient units?

Infants, Children and Families

Taitoko Tafa - The Popao model: a Pacific recovery and strength concept.

Andrea O Byrne - Outcome measures: Southern Health CAMHS journey.

Dion Rudzki - Outcome measures for 0-3 year olds and the parent-child relationship in child and adolescent mental health services.

Reima Pryor - Outcomes of a family mental health support service integrated within a family service.

Partnerships (NGOs and GP)

Caroline Johnson - Mental health outcome measurement in the general practice setting.

Jonine Penrose Wall - Symposium: Ground-up routine consumer outcome monitoring implementation is possible.

Glen Tobias Pres 1 - An evaluation of routine outcome measurement in a psychiatric rehabilitation service.

Glen Tobias Pres 2 - Routine outcome measurement and the perspectives of the different stakeholders: consumer

Emma Ladd Pres 1 - Making friends with the HoNOS: the development of collaborative outcomes measurement between NGOs and clinical service.

Jennifer Black - A measure of effectiveness: Using outcome measures as a tool in partnership and contract managment between a clinical mental health service and an NGO.

Emma Ladd Pres 2 - Covering the bases: an NGO's approach to measuring outcomes.

Mental Health Information

Philip Burgess - Routine Outcome Measurement: what's happening next.

Allen Morris Yates - Pilot study of the routine collection and reporting of Consumer Perceptions of Care.

Rhian Davies - Balmain to Bowral on the information highway: a review of the process for the collection of outcome measures in an area wide database.

Tania Lewis - Have you heard the one about outcome measures being more than just a data collection exercise?

Brenda Happell - Compute or communicate: exploring consumers' attitudes towards routine outcome measurement in mental health.

Erika Heslin - Beautiful one day

Tom Trauer - Staff attitudes to routine outcome measurement.

Quality Improvement

Liz Prowse - Using the LSP to inform programme decisions for individuals with borderline personality disorder.

Mark Smith - Symposium: Developing an outcomes focus for New Zealand's mental health services.

Rhian Davies Pres 1 - Outcome measures: quantity or quality?

Fiona Davidson - Does performance information like outcome measures improve service delivery? An assessment of a benchmarking process.

David Duerden - Using the HoNOS in clinical benchmarking and performance reporting.

Kim Erickson - Organisational change: the role of KPIs in a clinical redesign project at the Princess Alexandra Health Service

Rhian Davies Pres 2 - The evaluation of a high dependency unit inpatient facility through the use of outcome measures.

Workforce Development

Joy Atkins - Utilisation of outcome measures in public mental health.

Roderick McKay - Can routine outcome measurements be used to improve supervision of junior clinicians?

Tom Meehan - Five years on: emerging and continuing issues in the implementation of outcome measures.

Kathy Stapley - Sustainable routine outcome measure collection: what makes the difference?

Liz Prowse - Integrating outcome measures into clinical review: the experience of Noarlunga.