Developing Measures to Advance Quality in Mental Health Care Services (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

This RFA aims to support the development, testing, validation and implementation of quality metrics in mental health services research, that can be submitted to and endorsed by the relevant regulatory or governing bodies. In order to support the implementation and dissemination of high-quality mental health services, effective measures of defining and assessing quality are needed. Very few measures exist for assessing the quality of mental health care services; as noted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), these measures are not typically standardized or utilized uniformly. These quality measures can be used by policymakers, payers, organizational leaders, and clinicians for a variety of endeavors, including providing measurement-based care, evaluating the effectiveness of evidence-based care, enacting quality improvement interventions, assessing comparative- and cost-effectiveness across programs or clinical settings, utilizing real-world data in decision-making, and developing payment models, in order to continually improve mental health functioning and outcomes.