A National Quality Improvement Collaborative for the clinical use of outcome measurement in specialised mental healthcare: results from a parallel group design and a nested cluster randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Although the importance and advantages of measurement-based care in mental healthcare are well established, implementation in daily practice is complex and far from optimal. AIMS: To accelerate the implementation of outcome measurement in routine clinical practice, a government-sponsored National Quality Improvement Collaborative was initiated in Dutch-specialised mental healthcare. METHOD: To investigate the effects of this initiative, we combined a matched-pair parallel group design (21 teams) with a cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) (6 teams). At the beginning and end, the primary outcome ‘actual use and perceived clinical utility of outcome measurement’ was assessed. RESULTS: In both designs, intervention teams demonstrated a significant higher level of implementation of outcome measurement than control teams. Overall effects were large (parallel group d=0.99; RCT d=1.25). CONCLUSIONS: The National Collaborative successfully improved the use of outcome measurement in routine clinical practice. DECLARATION OF INTEREST: None. COPYRIGHT AND USAGE: © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2017. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license.