Mental Health: Systems Transformation

MINNESOTA

Grant Information


Name of Grantee

Minnesota Department of Human Services

Title of Grant

Using Evidence to Transform Systems: Science in Service of Children's Mental Health

Type of Grant

Mental Health: Systems Transformation

Amount of Grant

$300,000

Year Original Funding Received

2004

Contact Information


Dr. Glenace Edwall, Project Lead
Community Partnerships (Children's Mental Health)
444 Lafayette Road North
St. Paul
, MN 55155

651–215–1382
glenace.edwall@state.mn.us

Subcontractor(s)

Dr. Eric Daleiden, Consultant
Hawaii Department of Health
808–733–8354
eldaleid@camhmis.health.state.hi.us

Dr. Bruce Chorpita, Consultant
University of Hawaii
808–956–3607
chorpita@hawaii.edu

Sue Abderholden, Supervisor
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Minnesota (NAMI-MN)
651–645–2948
sabderholden@nami.org

Target Population(s)


Medicaid-eligible children with serious emotional disturbance (SED).

Goals


  • Expand and update scientific information available to providers and families for guiding decisions about children's mental health care.
  • Improve the service quality of children's mental health systems of care through the development of an evidence-based practices (EBP) database.
  • Establish a fully operational system that improves outcomes for children and families.

Activities


  • Produce a document that defines high level concepts to guide priorities and policies for systems development.
  • Produce guidelines for diagnostic assessments and identified outcomes measures for children's mental health.
  • Produce a document that details the specifications for the EBP database.
  • Develop training manuals, Web site supports, and ITV and site trainings for families, parent advocates, providers, and county case managers.
  • Import the modified Hawaii EBP database to an appropriate site and establish maintenance agreements/contracts.
  • Develop software or other technology to support pilot projects to design and test the prototype system.
  • Develop and test a provider performance system and produce service authorization guidelines.
  • Produce an interim evaluation report on the pilot projects, and conduct beta testing of the claims and authorization systems.
  • Develop a Continuous Quality Monitoring process that will start producing reports.
  • Implement a fully operational EBP database system, continue to provide training on the system, and produce a final evaluation report.

Abstract


The Minnesota Department of Human Services will develop and implement an evidence-based practices database to function as a clinical decision-making tool for parents and providers. The project is designed to make the best possible use of structures and processes used by Hawaii to implement evidence-based interventions throughout its system of care, to determine modifications in those structures and processes needed to match Minnesota's unique assets and constraints, and to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of these changes to Minnesota's children's mental health service system.

Based on Hawaii's approach, the project will join families and providers in a learning collaborative to build and implement a systematic approach to evidence-based services from published research and evaluation data. By the end of the project's first year, there will be a plan in place for technical systems changes that need to be made; evidence-based concepts will be familiar to a wide range of families, providers, and administrators; and Minnesota will be prepared to acquire and install the Hawaii-developed core practice elements database. In the second phase of the project, spanning most of Year 2, pilot projects will be developed, implemented, and evaluated. Pilot sites will be chosen regionally, in order to ensure the applicability of the project to urban, rural, and frontier areas. At the end of Year 3, the State will have a fully operational evidence-based practices database accompanied by strengthened collaborative consumer/provider relationships, customized training materials, enhanced claims and authorization systems, a continuous quality monitoring system, and evaluation reports.

Ultimately, the outcome will be a statewide system that improves clinical and functional outcomes for children, and parents and providers will have more choices in treating children. These system changes will also result in less institutional treatment of children and greater efficiencies in the State's Medicaid system.