Measurement-based care (MBC) refers to structured point-of-care assessments that are directly employed to inform clinician treatment planning. In practice, MBC can range from a single assessment to numerous measurements over time and can be applied in a variety of medical settings.
For substance use disorders (SUDs) and other mental health conditions, the application of MBC is a relatively novel, but highly promising clinical innovation. Measurement-based care for substance use disorders (MBC4SUD) is an innovative patient-centred treatment strategy in which real-time data collection and automated scoring are used to optimize patient care. More specifically, the MBC4SUD approach focuses on two critical elements of the clinical care path: (1) clarifying patient presentations for both addiction and comorbidities (i.e., high-resolution clinical phenotyping) to personalize treatment recommendations; and (2) characterizing within-treatment changes to inform clinical modifications or additions (i.e., creating structured “choice points” for clinicians).
Over the past seven years, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH) has been a leader in developing MBC for SUDs via collaborations between its Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research and the hospital’s addiction clinical services. This work has benefitted greatly from our partnership with Homewood Research Institute and support for implementing MBC in Homewood Healthcare’s clinical programs.
Most recently, with support from the Health Canada Substance Use and Addiction Program, MBC4SUD at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton is expanding in two major ways, both implementing MBC in more treatment settings where substance use is relevant and adding within-treatment follow-ups. In addition, we are working to make the MBC platform more scalable by fully automating it with a customizable desktop application. Finally, we are providing information about MBC4SUD to promote its adoption more widely across Canada.
