What is it about?
We created empirical mental health service areas using Veteran's VA health care patterns. Using these service areas we calculate and compare service use for both outpatient and inpatient mental health services and note large regional variations. These variations deserve further study to determine whether more intensive care results in better outcomes.
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Why is it important?
Variation in the quantity and quality of health care varies regionally. Creating empirically derived regions allows for the evaluation of variation to both improve quality and efficiency as well as simply showing providers how they compare to their peers.
Perspectives
The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care showed the value of small area analysis. Subsequent analyses showed large regional differences in the quantity of care received that could not be explained by need. Large variations in quality and outcomes have been identified too. Providers rarely know whether they provide more or better care than others because care can be attributed to many providers and comparisons are rarely available. This paper creates and disseminates a crosswalk to allow VA researchers to evaluate and compare mental health care at units that are valid and large enough to provide reasonable accuracy. A simple zip code to MHSA/MHRR crosswalk is available via GIT.
Daniel Gottlieb
Department of Veteran's Affairs
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Small Area Analysis of Veterans Affairs Mental Health Services Data, Psychiatric Services, April 2021, American Psychiatric Association,
DOI: 10.1176/appi.ps.202000130.
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