Center for Clinical Excellence

Program Description

Centerstone is one of the nation’s largest providers of behavioral health care, serving over 170,000 clients last year across five states. Centerstone’s Research Institute seeks out the best clinical practices and forward thinking solutions so that we can adopt them in our systems of care and positively shape the behavioral health industry. The Center for Clinical Excellence (CCE) partners with staff at all levels to improve the way behavioral health systems deliver treatment by improving quality of care and patient outcomes. The CCE collaborates with internal and national experts to develop industry leading clinical models, pathways and processes. The goal of this system-wide shift in clinical protocols is to close the science to service gap and help people with mental illness get better faster. Together, through these efforts, the CCE seeks to increase the use of evidence-based and data-driven treatment practices.

Creativity

Instead of simply declaring the organization’s clinical needs, the CCE has established a creative process for identifying which initiatives should take priority. Centerstone is filled with innovative people who have great ideas about how to improve care and better serve clients. The CCE hosts the Idea Hub for all 5,000+ staff to provide a mechanism for submitting great ideas. Since the creation of the Idea Hub in 2014, many amazing ideas have been submitted and implemented across Centerstone. To participate, staff simply submit an idea (large or small) to The Idea Hub through The Source – our organization intranet. Participants can then track the progress of their submission through a color-coded process that indicates if the idea is “New,” “Referred out,” “Pending,” or “Completed.” This process is intended to utilize our own greatest resource, our staff, to define how to improve the quality of care within the behavioral health industry.

Leadership

The goal of the CCE is to identify projects that improve quality of care and patient outcomes. Successful development and implementation of clinical models involves collaboration between the CCE and other enterprise experts. These include model-specific Clinical Subject Matter Experts, Senior Leadership, Marketing & Business Development, Informatics, Analytics, Medical Advisory Group and the Clinical Excellence Council. Centerstone’s Clinical Excellence Council discusses and prioritizes all project proposals to ensure alignment with the organization’s priority service lines, business strategy and market opportunities. Model development involves four key phases: Identification, Development, Implementation and Evolution.

Sustainability

The core of Centerstone’s business is to provide behavioral health services. The CCE aims to strengthen that core by ensuring we are providing the BEST behavioral health services available. Through online clinical and training resources, the CCE empowers staff to utilize evidence-based findings within their practice. Centerstone partners with agencies across the country to ensure that we are not only capturing the care provided within our clinics but also analyzing outside data. We currently partner with organizations such as: Alliance Behavioral Healthcare, American Addictions Centers, Center For Youth & Families, Cheatham County School District, DeKalb Community Services Board, Frontier Health, Helen Ross McNabb, Manitou, Mercy Maricopa Integrated Care, myStrength, NECCO and others. We believe through community partnerships and the strategic priorities of Centerstone, the CCE will be able to continue to evaluate treatment and define clinical best practices.

Replicability

The model of the CCE could be easily replicated within most organizations with adaptations for size, sources of funding and areas of focus. While the structure of this team can be replicated, it is our intention to publish findings and disseminate evidence-based best practices to help ensure that all behavioral health providers have access to the clinical models developed by the CCE. It is our belief that, while significant progress has been made, the behavioral health industry is missing the efficacy and consistency. Too often we see clients who are misdiagnosed, shuffled from provider to provider, prescribed with ineffective or conflicting medications, or simply not getting better. The CCE hopes that by establishing the clinical best-practices, we can help people receive prompt and effective treatment and allow them to return to a meaningful life.

Results/Outcomes

The Center for Clinical Excellence’s main focus is to improve clinical care at Centerstone so that our organization is consistently providing excellent service. The success of this initiative will be defined by the following long-term results: •All Centerstone clients receive consistent, high quality, research-based care regardless of where or how they come into our system •Centerstone will be guided by clinical outcomes as much as financial outcomes •Centerstone operates with a culture of measurement-based care •Centerstone serves as a leader in integrated healthcare, making sure we are helping our clients with their physical health needs as much as their behavioral health needs. Additionally, the CCE works with leadership and clinical teams to define which projects are a priority and tracks outcomes accordingly. Monthly reports are then published and made available for all staff. Current Focus Outcomes include: •Engagement after Hospitalization •Increasing Client Engagement •Reducing Suicides •Access to Routine Intake