Integration of a Web-based Behavioral Health Assessment within a Collaborative Care Setting

Abstract

9 JOURNAL OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGY IN MEDICINE VOL. 7 ISSUE 1 MARCH 2018 Web-based technological innovations are increasingly being utilized to enhance the quality of healthcare. The UCLA Behavioral Health CheckupTM (BHC) is an innovative real-time, cloudbased behavioral health assessment and clinician decision making tool. This paper examines the implementation and acceptability of the BHC within the UCLA Health System. The BHC was successfully integrated into seven UCLA Behavioral Health Associates (BHA) behavioral health collaborative care settings. Components of successful integration included training of administrative and clinical staff in use of the BHC platform, including how best to introduce behavioral health screening and measurement to patients and caregivers. BHA adult patients and caregivers of BHA youth patients reported positive experiences with the BHC. As the BHC delivers results to providers in real-time, it provides a unique occasion to engage patients through immediate discussion of patient responses and to use results for guiding and customizing clinical care. In addition, the integration of BHC results into a primary care system’s health record framework facilitates the coordination of care over time, providing an opportunity for measurement based treatment to target and treatment quality improvement.