Assessing the Utility of Consumer Surveys for Improving the Quality of Behavioral Health Care Services

The development and implementation of provider performance and consumer outcome measures for behavioral health care have been growing over the last decade, presumably because they are useful tools for improving service quality. However, the extent to which providers have successfully used performance measurement results has not been adequately determined. To this end, two methods were used to better understand the use of data obtained from an annual survey of behavioral health care consumers: a cross-sectional survey of executive directors, clinical program directors, and quality improvement directors and follow-up interviews with a subsample of survey respondents. Results revealed information about the use of consumer survey data, factors that facilitate and hinder the use of results, as well as respondents' opinions about consumer survey administration procedures. These findings provide valuable information for the application of performance measures and, ultimately, improving consumer outcomes.