Faculty Bibliography

OBJECTIVE: This study identified barriers and facilitators to the high-fidelity implementation of assertive community treatment. METHODS: As part of a multistate implementation project for evidence-based practices, training and consultation were provided to 13 newly implemented assertive community treatment teams in two states. Model fidelity was assessed at baseline and at six, 12, 18, and 24 months. Key informant interviews, surveys, and monthly on-site visits were used to monitor implementation processes related to barriers and facilitators. RESULTS: Licensing processes of the state mental health authority provided critical structural supports for implementation. These supports included a dedicated Medicaid billing structure, start-up funds, ongoing fidelity monitoring, training in the model, and technical assistance. Higher-fidelity sites had effective administrative and program leadership, low staff turnover, sound personnel practices, and skilled staff, and they allocated sufficient resources in terms of staffing, office space, and cars. Lower-fidelity sites were associated with insufficient resources, prioritization of fiscal concerns in implementation, lack of change culture, poor morale, conflict among staff, and high staff turnover. In cross-state comparisons, the specific nature of fiscal policies, licensing processes, and technical assistance appeared to influence implementation. CONCLUSIONS: State mental health authorities can play a critical role in assertive community treatment implementation but should carefully design billing mechanisms, promote technical assistance centers, link program requirements to fidelity models, and limit bureaucratic requirements. Successful implementation at the organizational level requires committed leadership, allocation of sufficient resources, and careful hiring procedures.

The authors discuss the implications of the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) for mental health services researchers, in particular the need to monitor and change prescriber behavior to encourage informed medication selection. Given the complexity and variability of response to antipsychotic medications in CATIE, use of restricted formularies is not the answer. Rather, services researchers should collaborate with service systems to develop interventions to identify questionable prescriber practices and develop interventions to change them. The CATIE results also suggest that some quality measures for antipsychotic treatment, such as the proportion of a population taking second-generation antipsychotics, need to be revisited by researchers. Also, because the CATIE findings highlighted the prevalence of cardiac and metabolic disorders among treatment populations and the potential impact of antipsychotics on these conditions, services researchers should use secondary data to monitor whether prescribers are providing appropriate screening and treatment. Given the health risks of some antipsychotics, services researchers should develop ways to identify individuals at risk, encourage behavior change among prescribers, and support informed and shared decision making about medications. Mental health services researchers can build relationships with multiple stakeholders, including service system administrators, service providers, and consumers, to help translate results from trials such as CATIE into policy and practice.

BACKGROUND: A panel of academic psychiatrists and pharmacists, clinicians from the Texas public mental health system, advocates, and consumers met in June 2006 in Dallas, Tex., to review recent evidence in the pharmacologic treatment of schizophrenia. The goal of the consensus conference was to update and revise the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) algorithm for schizophrenia used in the Texas Implementation of Medication Algorithms, a statewide quality assurance program for treatment of major psychiatric illness. METHOD: Four questions were identified via premeeting teleconferences. (1) Should antipsychotic treatment of first-episode schizophrenia be different from that of multiepisode schizophrenia? (2) In which algorithm stages should first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs) be an option? (3) How many antipsychotic trials should precede a clozapine trial? (4) What is the status of augmentation strategies for clozapine? Subgroups reviewed the evidence in each area and presented their findings at the conference. RESULTS: The algorithm was updated to incorporate the following recommendations. (1) Persons with first-episode schizophrenia typically require lower antipsychotic doses and are more sensitive to side effects such as weight gain and extrapyramidal symptoms (group consensus). Second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) are preferred for treatment of first-episode schizophrenia (majority opinion). (2) FGAs should be included in algorithm stages after first episode that include SGAs other than clozapine as options (group consensus). (3) The recommended number of trials of other antipsychotics that should precede a clozapine trial is 2, but earlier use of clozapine should be considered in the presence of persistent problems such as suicidality, comorbid violence, and substance abuse (group consensus). (4) Augmentation is reasonable for persons with inadequate response to clozapine, but published results on augmenting agents have not identified replicable positive results (group consensus). CONCLUSIONS: These recommendations are meant to provide a framework for clinical decision making, not to replace clinical judgment. As with any algorithm, treatment practices will evolve beyond the recommendations of this consensus conference as new evidence and additional medications become available.

OBJECTIVE: This article presents fidelity outcomes for five evidence-based practices that were implemented in routine public mental health settings in the National Implementing Evidence-Based Practices Project. METHODS: Over a two-year period 53 community mental health centers across eight states implemented one of five evidence-based practices: supported employment, assertive community treatment, integrated dual disorders treatment, family psychoeducation, and illness management and recovery. An intervention model of practice dissemination guided the implementation. Each site used both human resources (consultant-trainers) and material resource (toolkits) to aid practice implementation and to facilitate organizational changes. External assessors rated fidelity to the evidence-based practice model every six months from baseline to two years. RESULTS: More than half of the sites (29 of 53, or 55%) showed high-fidelity implementation at the end of two years. Significant differences in fidelity emerged by evidence-based practice. Supported employment and assertive community treatment had higher fidelity scores at baseline and across time. Illness management and recovery and integrated dual disorders treatment had lower scores on average throughout. In general, evidence-based practices showed an increase in fidelity from baseline to 12 months, with scores leveling off between 12 and 24 months. CONCLUSIONS: Most mental health centers implemented these evidence-based practices with moderate to high fidelity. The critical time period for implementation was approximately 12 months, after which few gains were made, although sites sustained their attained levels of evidence-based practice fidelity for another year.

The New York State Office of Mental Health has implemented the browser based Psychiatric Clinical Knowledge Enhancement System (PSYCKES) medication application throughout its inpatient system of care. PSYCKES provides detailed current medication regimens and histories, as well as medication best practices reports at the patient, psychiatrist, ward, and facility levels. South Beach Psychiatric Center (SBPC) has made specific use of a best practices report which details proportions of caseloads and number of patients on two or more concurrent antipsychotic medications. Psychiatrists received extensive application and desktop support and individual and group training was conducted. PSYCKES current and historical medication regimens were reviewed for individual cases and best practices reports were used in psychiatry supervision from January 2004 to March 2005. SBPC psychiatrists achieved marked reductions in the proportions of their caseloads on two or more concurrent antipsychotics. Although we cannot impute causality from this pre-post implementation design, the results of this evaluation suggest that the use of PSYCKES was effective in reducing such regimens for inpatients.

BACKGROUND: The Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) has been a public-academic collaboration in which guidelines for medication treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder were used in selected public outpatient clinics in Texas. Subsequently, these algorithms were implemented throughout Texas and are being used in other states. Guidelines require updating when significant new evidence emerges; the antipsychotic algorithm for schizophrenia was last updated in 1999. This article reports the recommendations developed in 2002 and 2003 by a group of experts, clinicians, and administrators. METHOD: A conference in January 2002 began the update process. Before the conference, experts in the pharmacologic treatment of schizophrenia, clinicians, and administrators reviewed literature topics and prepared presentations. Topics included ziprasidone's inclusion in the algorithm, the number of antipsychotics tried before clozapine, and the role of first generation antipsychotics. Data were rated according to Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality criteria. After discussing the presentations, conference attendees arrived at consensus recommendations. Consideration of aripiprazole's inclusion was subsequently handled by electronic communications. RESULTS: The antipsychotic algorithm for schizophrenia was updated to include ziprasidone and aripiprazole among the first-line agents. Relative to the prior algorithm, the number of stages before clozapine was reduced. First generation antipsychotics were included but not as first-line choices. For patients refusing or not responding to clozapine and clozapine augmentation, preference was given to trying monotherapy with another antipsychotic before resorting to antipsychotic combinations. CONCLUSION: Consensus on algorithm revisions was achieved, but only further well-controlled research will answer many key questions about sequence and type of medication treatments of schizophrenia.

Psychiatric Clinical Knowledge Enhancement System (PSYCKES) is an innovative information system that presents patient medication history in tabular and graphical form. The system is designed to support therapeutic decision making. In this paper, we present a multifaceted cognitive evaluation of this system. The evaluation includes a cognitive walkthrough which is a task-analytic method for usability evaluation. We also conducted cognitive studies of two trainee and two attending psychiatrists using the system. One of the attending subjects is presented as a case study. An objective of this research is to characterize the way PSYCKES mediates reasoning. The study found that clinicians were able to use the system effectively to extract and coordinate information and draw appropriate inferences. The expert clinicians were better able to construct a coherent patient representation. The study also documented a few usability problems pertaining to the temporal integration of patient data. PSYCKES is a multifaceted tool that can significantly enhance therapeutic decision making.