Episode of care review 2003

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Synopsis

The Stage 2 report of the Drugs Policy Expert Committee (DPEC) released in November 2000 recommended that the Department of Human Services should conduct a review of its key mechanism for monitoring the performance of its drug treatment services: the Episode of Care (EOC). DPEC indicated that the review should aim to determine whether the current Episode of Care concept needs refining or adjusting, or whether there are more appropriate models that could be used. The Episode of Care Review project was thus conducted to propose a strategy and approach to performance measurement that will improve the Department's ability to appraise the outcomes of drug treatment services.

The project aimed to review the strengths, weaknesses and limitations of the EOC concept and produce recommendations to assist Drugs Policy and Services Branch with it’s strategic use of performance measurement and to ensure that the EOC assists, rather than detracts from good casework principles and practice. Health Outcomes International (HOI) was contracted to conduct the Episode of Care Review in 2002.

HOI proposed that the EOC be maintained as part of a broader performance measurement system, to consist of elements that will monitor levels of activity, client outcome, service quality and efficiency. They proposed that within this new system, the EOC should remain as a mechanism by which service activity can be monitored from a goal-attainment perspective. HOI further proposed that the way in which EOC are currently recorded by the Alcohol & Drug Information System (ADIS/SWITCH) be altered to enable a more articulate way of recording the attainment of significant treatment goals, in order to identify the actual outcomes.

Contents

• Executive summary
• Introduction
• Findings from literature review
• Data analysis
• Feedback from consultations
• Options for a revised performance measurement strategy
• A revised performance measurement system for services in Victoria
• Conditions required to implement the new performance measurement system
• Appendices

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