"Starting in 2017, the Joint Commission will require the 2300 behavioral healthcare organizations it accredits to initiate standardized measurement of interventions designed to improve patients' mental health outcomes."
The reason appears to be a lack of consistency in treatment caused by insurers skirting the mental health parity law. The project is sponsored by the Kennedy Forum and the Satcher Health Leadership Institute. The Satcher Health Leadership Institute is in Atlanta GA at Morehouse School of Medicine. I have met the Dr. Wrenn who is a major player and reviewed the working plan. It should be a very interesting project and I will keep you informed. To read more click here.
I just read a NYT article The Data Against Kant that challenged the philosopher Emanuel Kant's thinking about ought verses can. They gave an example where a friend and you were interviewing for the same job and she offered to drive you to the airport, but the car broke down. Does she still have an obligation to get you to the airport? Most people said "No" until they changed the scenario to one where she purposefully sabotaged the car to stop you getting to the airport.
The problem comes when you feel that she sabotaged your chances rather than it was an act of fate. The difficulty with the example is the same difficulty with most research. Research tends to lump what happens in the environment with relations and even connect events to a biological cause without trying to understand the interactions of the parts. This basic problem is not paying attention to what you are researching.
Which area is it - environment, relationship, or biology? If the researcher differentiates as much as possible and then tries to define the interconnect, the research makes more sense. For example, if a car breaks down it is an environmental event that does not affect your relationship. It may cause a disappointment, but doesn't damage the relationship. If the person sabotaged the car, it is not an environmental issue, but the relationship is harmed. Finally, if the person has a heart attack, which is a biological event, the relationship remains in tact. Clarifying the real focus of research makes a huge difference in the outcome.
I am working on a paper titled "How Adverse Childhood Experiences Become Adult Physical and Emotional Problems". I plan to eplain that patterns are the missing link in the ACEs data, that patterns happen normally during development, that the brain defines patterns, and, based on the stress present at the time of the creation, the pattern may be only partially functional.