Since 1974, Red Rock Behavioral Health has been providing services to individuals across Oklahoma. Today it is one of the largest CMHC & Certified Community Behavioral Health Centers (CCBHC) in the state, serving approximately 16,000 individuals per year, in 19 counties (mostly rural), across 26 different locations.
In 2019, Healthy Minds reported that Adults and children in Oklahoma were found to have higher rates for Major Depressive Episode than anywhere else in the United States.
In fact, more than one-third of clients who presented to Red Rock had Severe to Moderately Severe Depression symptoms. With a focus on integrated, whole-person care, the Red Rock team had always worked hard to use data for performance improvement, but this wasn’t always easy because of the manual nature of reporting services.
With a true need for real-time data and a critical focus on Depression, Red Rock established a relationship with Afia to build a Data Analytics Platform and develop an underlying care pathway logic. Given the affluence of Depression, Red Rock staff were already utilizing an Evidence-Based Treatment (EBT) protocol consisting of varying levels and frequencies of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Red Rock formalized the treatment protocol into a 12-week treatment plan, with one of three levels of treatment identified based on the client’s score on the PHQ-9. Clients were scheduled for services and were shown a dashboard of their progress at every visit, which illustrated the rate of depression they were experiencing at the start of their Depression Care Pathway and the progress they had accomplished to-date. This not only engaged the client in the treatment protocol, but empowered them as a true participant in their own treatment.
“It is really cool to see my progress since being placed on the pathway. It is eye opening how I was struggling initially and now looking back, I have done a lot of work” – Client on the pathway
Knowing that another key to the success of the Depression Care Pathway were the CBT interventions, it also became important to provide clinicians feedback via dashboards on the fidelity to the treatment protocol. The clinicians ability to monitor the success of the client, as well as their own success as a clinician, assisted with enhancing clinician engagement as well as remediating clinician burnout.
As a result of Red Rock’s clinical treatment efforts, and the use of the real-time data provided through Afia Analytics, Red Rock was able to evidence significant improvement in client Depression. Sixty-six percent (66%) of client Depression improved when clients participated in any component of the Red Rock Depression Care Pathway.
Results were even more impressive when clients complied with the full fidelity of the Depression Care Pathway, with seventy-nine percent (79%) of compliant clients experiencing a significant improvement of depression symptoms within the 12-week treatment cycle. These results were incredibly encouraging. So much so that not only does Red Rock plan to continue their work with the Depression Care Pathway, but are now in the planning stages to include more formal Suicidality and Physical Health Care Pathway treatment protocols.
“Afia dashboards has been a game changer for Red Rock. We have access to beautiful dashboards for various levels of staff and clients. The Depression Care Pathway helps us ensure we are following EBP and keeping the fidelity of the model.” – Wana Ellison, COO of Outpatient Services
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