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Many organizations are making tremendous strides in providing fast access to behavioral healthcare for their people. It's a positive step in the right direction.
But how can we ensure those entering care are receiving the highest quality care? How can organizations feel confident that quality assurance is truly at the core of their behavioral health solution? How can we also ensure those in crisis can receive the help they need 24/7—since a crisis can happen at any time?
It can be a costly misstep for an organization to choose a behavioral health solution without ensuring the reliability and effectiveness of the care being delivered.
This is where independent third-party accreditation comes into play. Think of it as a reliable compass, helping you navigate the sea of vendor claims and pointing you toward credible solutions.
Accreditation can provide clarity
What is accreditation, and what exactly is being accredited?
Think of accreditation as a comprehensive inspection by industry experts. It gives you the confidence to invest in a thoroughly vetted and effective solution, like checking safety ratings before buying a car.
Accreditation is a voluntary deep dive that involves a behavioral health program opening all its doors to an independent, impartial review of their entire care delivery process.
The goal? To have a neutral third party, made up of independent experts, meticulously review the quality of the vendor's services based on hundreds of industry standards. A successful accreditation is a clear signal that you are doing things right.
When evaluating an accreditation, it is important to understand what activities are actually being accredited. Some accreditations focus on the hiring and credentialing process for providers. But these accreditations do not look at care delivery at all, and can’t comment on how quality care can be verified.
A strong accreditation process evaluates whether a behavioral health program is:
- Using evidence-based practices
- Measuring and tracking outcomes
- Supporting the relationships between providers and patients
- Following clinical safety best practices
- Connecting people with the right type of care
- Offering the appropriate level of care
This is why we decided to pursue an accreditation for our nationwide adult and child outpatient behavioral health care delivery and crisis programs. We wanted to ensure we are a leader in high-quality, safe care delivery and adhere to the best industry standards in everything we do.
Quality is paramount, but vendors' claims can often be unclear and difficult to assess. This is where independent expert review becomes invaluable. Subjecting vendor claims to rigorous evaluation helps determine whether a solution truly delivers on its promises.
Spring Health’s journey to accreditation
We pursued accreditation with the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF), who has been a leader in health and human services accreditation nationally and internationally for over 60 years. We chose CARF because we wanted an organization that offered review and accreditation for the most important things we do—high-quality outpatient care delivery services and 24/7 crisis support programs.
After undergoing their rigorous accreditation review, we are excited to announce Spring Health is the first and only behavioral health solution accredited by CARF for nationwide programming, including:
- Outpatient behavioral health for adults and minors
- Crisis care and intervention, for both adults and minors
We received no adverse findings for any of our outpatient care delivery, crisis programs, outcome monitoring, and quality improvement processes—proving we’re providing high-quality behavioral health treatment.
CARF notes that “Spring Health demonstrated substantial conformance to the standards. Spring Health has shown a deep commitment to the well-being of patients through the provision of high-quality and person-centered services.”
Putting everything under a microscope
CARF’s review of Spring Health involved a comprehensive evaluation of how our organization is run and how care delivery is offered, from enrollment to discharge. They evaluated our programs on over 300 standards during their assessment.
Behavioral health experts set up interviews with people involved in all the programs we applied for, including:
- Patients
- Providers
- Crisis care team
- Customers
- Internal staff
For CARF, all these aspects relate to the quality of care delivery. Let’s use a few aspects of our behavioral health solution that were assessed as an example of how accreditation is connected with quality.
Measurement-based care is a quality indicator
When reviewing our programming, CARF was impressed with our in-house electronic health records system, Compass, which is used by 100% of our providers, care navigators and coaches.
Compass allows providers to integrate measurement-based care during every part of the treatment process. It also allows us to better understand provider actions and patient outcomes and how these affect the quality of care we deliver.
The surveyors noted that “Spring Health's leadership is dedicated to using data for continuous evaluation of its infrastructure and to maintain and improve current methods of operation.”
CARF also reviewed our quality management systems, including those connected with measurement-based care. For example, they evaluated our care process from the onset, including how we:
- Get patients into care quickly
- Ensure they are matched with the right type of care
- Track clinical outcomes
- Utilize follow up protocols with patients
They also spoke with our providers to understand how they are supported and cared for. When providers feel well taken care of, they can bring their best to caring for their patients every day.
Clinical safety and crisis programming
Clinical safety is critical when treating mental health challenges, and it’s therefore important to ensure that it’s done carefully.
CARF reviewed our risk-leveling strategies, patient triaging, how we support providers in crisis management, and how we help stabilize patients to prevent unneeded ER visits or inpatient admissions.
The facets of our crisis care they reviewed included:
- 24/7 nationwide crisis care program
- Suicide screening
- Proactive crisis outreach
- Crisis intervention practices
In CARF’s accreditation letter, they pointed out that “your organization should take pride in achieving this high level of accreditation.”
We’re thrilled to have the quality of our work validated by independent experts. This tells us we’re on the right path to ensuring more people can get quality care precisely when they need it.
Quality as a baseline priority
For Spring Health to voluntarily open itself up to such a rigorous review process demonstrates how much we care about the quality of the treatment we offer.
We take that responsibility seriously and want to ensure our clinical processes are up to the highest standard. We also enjoyed the opportunity to ask where we could improve as we continue to seek innovation and best-in-class quality in our offerings. Accreditation provided us with a chance to do both.
With so many behavioral health vendors on the market, seeking quality differentiators is more important than ever.
It’s key to ensure people are receiving quality care. Your people are worth it, and your organization deserves to understand that its resources are being used well.
Read our press release to learn more about why Spring Health is poised to continue transforming mental healthcare for individuals and organizations alike.
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