That
is a change from the early days of the Campbell government
when the Ministry's service plan included other mental health
targets including annual percentage increases in per capita
funding for mental health services. Unfortunately the government
eliminated access to any data on mental health funding so
it is impossible to determine whether their target
of a 3.9% increase in per capita mental health funding
for 2004-2005 was achieved before funding targets for future
plans were abandoned with the excuse that it was not an
output or outcome measure.
During
his post-Olympic European tour, Premier Campbell demonstrated
his interest in learning about what other nations have done
to improve health care. A few clicks of a mouse on Google
could achieve the same, especially in the area of mental
health. In the Australian state of Victoria work started
in 1992 on measuring
mental health outcomes. Their mental
health services website notes that the Psychiatric Disability
Rehabilitation and Support Service (PDRSS) sector considers
monitoring consumer outcomes as a fundamental part of their
work as "…it highlights changes that occur in
the lives of individual consumers during the period they
have been supported…" Isn't it a refreshing change
to see a public mental health service that is concerned
about individual outcomes rather than simply minimizing
public sector costs! Why hasn't the Campbell government
included measurements of individual outcomes in its performance
criteria for health services?
The
Campbell government doesn't have to go all the way to Australia
to see better ways of measuring mental health. The United
States Department of Health and Human Services embarked
on a process to establish performance measures for all of
its programs. The report prepared for it, Assessment
of Performance Measures for Public Health, Substance Abuse,
and Mental Health, Edward B. Perrin and Jeffrey
J. Koshel, Editors; National Research Council, 1997, noted
that:
It would
be a major step forward if the Campbell government could
put quality assurance, access, consumer satisfaction and
outcomes ahead of measures of cost. If you want to know
what the BC health authorities are held accountable for,
just look at their "performance
agreements". Those agreements limit mental health
performance to Riverview replacements, 30 day community
follow-up for mental patients after hospitalization and
readmission rates. Nothing is said about the key indicators
the US Department of Health and Human Services considers
essential.
(Also
see Ontario's
Mental Health Accountability Framework by clicking here.)
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