Ever wondered how the power of data can revolutionize behavioral healthcare? Picture this: comprehensive insights informed by key data points that help you provide personalized, effective care to your clients. Join us in this eye-opening conversation with David Whitesock from Commonly Well. We dive into the nitty-gritty of this fascinating intersection between healthcare and data. We discuss how tracking certain data points, understanding demographics, process metrics, and patients' treatment preferences can positively impact patient outcomes.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Hatching Creativity.
This isn't just anotherbehavioral health podcast.
This is the place where thoughtleaders converge to talk about
real life challenges,breakthroughs and pivotal aha
moments.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
One of the things that I love about what you do
and what Commonly Well does, isthe way you're looking at data
to improve clients' lives andclients' experiences.
Can you talk with me a littlebit about some of the data
points that you find to bereally helpful to be tracking in
(00:39):
behavioral healthcare settingsas a best practice?
What data points do yourecommend people should be
looking at?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
From a starting perspective, just process and
process being, if you don't havea handle on the total number of
people that are in your census,it's oftentimes that I will
talk to a behavioral healthleader and I'll say what's your
annual census and they'll go.
That's the first number youneed to know.
(01:10):
You need to know the date.
The moment you wake up youshould look at a sheet or
dashboard or report that saysyesterday you admitted X and
that is in the last week you'veadmitted Y and in the last month
you've admitted Z.
You need to know those numbers.
Like that.
You need to know your fall off.
(01:31):
So maybe AMAs or just peoplethat leave early.
You need to know those numbers.
How many people are makingappointments versus not?
These are all conversion typenumbers, but they're proxies for
something else.
They're proxies for quality.
They're proxies for how yourpeople engage the people you
(01:53):
serve.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
You're also talking about when people are leaving
early.
Right, and oftentimes peoplereally have the best idea
data-wise when it comes to theirmarketing whether the marketing
is working or maybe on theirintakes right.
But you also want to be lookingand I just wanted to throw this
(02:17):
little extra piece and thereyou're talking about looking at
people leaving early or againsttherapeutic or medical advice.
You also want to be looking atthe some social determinants of
health around there, too, right?
Are we more successful withthis demographic or this
demographic?
Certain therapists working outway better with this demographic
(02:42):
than this demographic.
Where are we best serving ourclientele, too, and that will
also help, just on a businessstandpoint.
I wanted to throw that in there, as well as on the quality side
.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Kind of fascinating.
A lot of people sort ofdiminish the importance of
demographic data, but thosecharacteristics, as you just
said, can, especially inbehavioral health, be
illuminating too a lot ofdifferent things.
(03:16):
The people who engage that aretherapists or otherwise.
We bring our own biases intothings, whether it's intentional
or not.
If you could stratify yourpractice by therapist and then
(03:40):
by patient demographic, and thenmaybe a third measure, just
like let's just call ittreatment affinity to people
think the treatment's workingfor them.
As a simple one which, by theway, it's an easy question to
get at, mike, I could have youin for a group session tonight
along with 20 others.
You leave 10 minutes later, wekick you a text message and just
(04:02):
ask you on a scale of one toseven Was tonight helpful for
you to turn on or not?
And you gather that data, takeit against your demographics and
you put it against thattherapist and against all the
other therapists and I guaranteeyou you will see a population
or a profile of people thatdon't connect with a particular
(04:26):
therapist, not because thetherapist is bad, but what you
start to find is, oh, thattherapist does better with these
people.
So what should you do?
As of yesterday.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
You should start navigating those types of people
to that therapist like you justshould we talk in this field so
much about the key to successbeing a longer length of
engagement with the client andtheir treatment?
Whatever that is and it's thesame thing with any kind of
(05:00):
healthcare right it's theengagement of the practitioner
and the client or the patient,and that therapeutic alliance is
so important.
If you don't have a goodalliance with that practitioner,
then you're also at asignificant disadvantage.
So understanding that willimprove outcomes as well as your
(05:24):
business.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, I mean some of the data in the research does
suggest that that longer termcare has better outcomes.
But if you read enough of thosestudies, what you tend to find
is that it's sort of anoversampled, it's a bias.
Because of the oversampling ofthat particular population they
stayed in longer, so they'reprobably gonna have better
(05:45):
outcomes, it's like.
But that's okay, I'm not gonnaknock that.
But I would say the counter tothat is thinking about.
Go back to the example that Imentioned earlier of TV show the
Bear.
In hospitality and inrestaurants you have somebody
that comes in one time likely.
You're gonna go visit a place.
You research, you find therestaurant you wanna go to and
(06:08):
you show up and you've got areservation.
Maybe it's a birthday or agraduation or something.
You only have that 90 minutesor two hours for it to be a
really great experience.
That's it.
There's no longitudinalanything in there.
You gotta get every little bitright and this is the.
This will be my one challengeto behavioral health.
People Stop thinkinglongitudinally.
I know we wanna lay out like athree, six, 12 month outcomes
(06:33):
model.
That's what I do.
I do that for people.
But we have to get to theindividual moment Cause, every
one of those little moments whenpeople walk.
If I walk into the door of atreatment facility and there is
a, if there's a five gallonbucket outside the door with
empty cigarette butts in it, whowants to go into a place like
that to get healthcare?
(06:53):
I don't, so you could fix that.
If I walk into the place andimmediately I walk in and the
person behind the desk is notonly behind a desk but behind a
computer screen and I can onlysee like half his face or her
face.
I'm sorry that is sounwelcoming.
These are all things that couldtrigger a positive effect about
(07:15):
that person's desire to be inthat space, that when you get to
that, that that mini moment,you sort of create a cascade of
feelings in that person.
So all I wanna make sure peopleunderstand is yeah, we can, we
can track all these long-termoutcomes and we can do all these
things.
But sometimes we just gottalook at what's that experience
(07:37):
of people walking in the doorand what do they smell and what
do they hear.
If it's loud off in the cornerand the walls are paper thin and
you can maybe hear anothersession going on next door, I
mean, if that's me.
I'm go, I'm out of here.
I don't want somebody to hearmy session going on.
Those things matter.
So your AMAs may not berelevant to the person not
(07:57):
wanting to commit to care.
It might be the way that theywere treated when they walked in
the door.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
You hear it really often when it comes to things
that were said during theadmissions process or with the
marketing team on the phone, andthey get there and it's
different.
You know, what you just saidreminded me of a of an
expression from Maya Angelou,and she said I've learned that
people often forget what you'vesaid and they'll forget what
(08:24):
you've did, but they're nevergoing to forget the way you made
them feel.
Yeah, and it's true.
I mean, I think that there'sdefinitely a middle ground, but
if you make somebody feelwelcome and deal with those
details that you're talkingabout, that will lend to a
(08:44):
longer term engagement as well,without people actually leaving
beforehand, so they do go handin hand together as well.
At the end of the day, it'sabout helping people and meeting
people where they are and wherethey need to be to get the best
results for them.
And that's why you've got to belooking at that data, because
(09:07):
if you're not looking at thedata and doing anything with it,
then you wouldn't have anythingto work with.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, I was at a we're at the National Drug Court
Conference, drug CourtTreatment Conference a couple of
weeks ago and was visiting witha judge and you know it was an
interesting conversation aroundthe idea that you know, all of
these treatment courts have sortof this designed protocol
around sort of this 24 month or18 month structure of the
(09:38):
program and these four phases.
And he said, hey, judge, sowhat's your goal?
He's like I want them to getthrough all four phases.
And I said how long does thattypically take you?
And he goes the 24 months, asyou know it's suggested.
And I go Are you just trying tomeet to the clock of the 24
months?
And he goes Well, yeah, becausethat's what we're told.
(09:59):
And I'm like what if there wasanother way?
What if you found out that someof these people are excelling
faster?
Wouldn't you want to move themthrough the gates faster and get
them out of your court fasterand clean up your docket?
And he looks at me and he goesyeah, that's what I'd love to do
, but that's not what theprotocols are.
And I think there's anotherthing too, where we've got these
(10:21):
like this catch 22 sometimes inour field.
We see all the protocols we seewhat's called.
It's like so called bestpractices, but somebody else's
best practices might not be yourbest practice for the people
you serve, but you don't know it.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
If you're not collecting the data, that's it.
All kind of circles back tothat, right, I mean.
Otherwise you're just guessing.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, and you know, when you say that collecting the
data, a lot of people like sortof start to freak out and
they're like oh my gosh, I don'tknow what data to collect.
And it's like just break down aprocess and what information do
you need at each one of thosemoments, like any business has
to do this.
Right, you know, you talk aboutthe inbound of the marketing to
(11:05):
the sales process, to thecompleting the sale, to the
onboarding, to delivering theproduct, all those things.
Right, it's not really.
Once you do that, it's not hardto figure out.
What must I ask or what must Ido to, quote, capture the data?
Very true.
Welcome to Hatching Creativity.
This isn't just anotherbehavioral health podcast.
This is the place where thoughtleaders converge to talk about
real life challenges,breakthroughs and pivotal aha
moments.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
One of the things that I love about what you do
and what Commonly Well does, isthe way you're looking at data
to improve clients' lives andclients' experiences.
Can you talk with me a littlebit about some of the data
points that you find to bereally helpful to be tracking in
(00:39):
behavioral healthcare settingsas a best practice?
What data points do yourecommend people should be
looking at?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
From a starting perspective, just process and
process being, if you don't havea handle on the total number of
people that are in your census,it's oftentimes that I will
talk to a behavioral healthleader and I'll say what's your
annual census and they'll go.
That's the first number youneed to know.
(01:10):
You need to know the date.
The moment you wake up youshould look at a sheet or
dashboard or report that saysyesterday you admitted X and
that is in the last week you'veadmitted Y and in the last month
you've admitted Z.
You need to know those numbers.
Like that.
You need to know your fall off.
(01:31):
So maybe AMAs or just peoplethat leave early.
You need to know those numbers.
How many people are makingappointments versus not?
These are all conversion typenumbers, but they're proxies for
something else.
They're proxies for quality.
They're proxies for how yourpeople engage the people you
(01:53):
serve.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
You're also talking about when people are leaving
early.
Right, and oftentimes peoplereally have the best idea
data-wise when it comes to theirmarketing whether the marketing
is working or maybe on theirintakes right.
But you also want to be lookingand I just wanted to throw this
(02:17):
little extra piece and thereyou're talking about looking at
people leaving early or againsttherapeutic or medical advice.
You also want to be looking atthe some social determinants of
health around there, too, right?
Are we more successful withthis demographic or this
demographic?
Certain therapists working outway better with this demographic
(02:42):
than this demographic.
Where are we best serving ourclientele, too, and that will
also help, just on a businessstandpoint.
I wanted to throw that in there, as well as on the quality side
.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Kind of fascinating.
A lot of people sort ofdiminish the importance of
demographic data, but thosecharacteristics, as you just
said, can, especially inbehavioral health, be
illuminating too a lot ofdifferent things.
(03:16):
The people who engage that aretherapists or otherwise.
We bring our own biases intothings, whether it's intentional
or not.
If you could stratify yourpractice by therapist and then
(03:40):
by patient demographic, and thenmaybe a third measure, just
like let's just call ittreatment affinity to people
think the treatment's workingfor them.
As a simple one which, by theway, it's an easy question to
get at, mike, I could have youin for a group session tonight
along with 20 others.
You leave 10 minutes later, wekick you a text message and just
(04:02):
ask you on a scale of one toseven Was tonight helpful for
you to turn on or not?
And you gather that data, takeit against your demographics and
you put it against thattherapist and against all the
other therapists and I guaranteeyou you will see a population
or a profile of people thatdon't connect with a particular
(04:26):
therapist, not because thetherapist is bad, but what you
start to find is, oh, thattherapist does better with these
people.
So what should you do?
As of yesterday.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
You should start navigating those types of people
to that therapist like you justshould we talk in this field so
much about the key to successbeing a longer length of
engagement with the client andtheir treatment?
Whatever that is and it's thesame thing with any kind of
(05:00):
healthcare right it's theengagement of the practitioner
and the client or the patient,and that therapeutic alliance is
so important.
If you don't have a goodalliance with that practitioner,
then you're also at asignificant disadvantage.
So understanding that willimprove outcomes as well as your
(05:24):
business.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, I mean some of the data in the research does
suggest that that longer termcare has better outcomes.
But if you read enough of thosestudies, what you tend to find
is that it's sort of anoversampled, it's a bias.
Because of the oversampling ofthat particular population they
stayed in longer, so they'reprobably gonna have better
(05:45):
outcomes, it's like.
But that's okay, I'm not gonnaknock that.
But I would say the counter tothat is thinking about.
Go back to the example that Imentioned earlier of TV show the
Bear.
In hospitality and inrestaurants you have somebody
that comes in one time likely.
You're gonna go visit a place.
You research, you find therestaurant you wanna go to and
(06:08):
you show up and you've got areservation.
Maybe it's a birthday or agraduation or something.
You only have that 90 minutesor two hours for it to be a
really great experience.
That's it.
There's no longitudinalanything in there.
You gotta get every little bitright and this is the.
This will be my one challengeto behavioral health.
People Stop thinkinglongitudinally.
I know we wanna lay out like athree, six, 12 month outcomes
(06:33):
model.
That's what I do.
I do that for people.
But we have to get to theindividual moment Cause, every
one of those little moments whenpeople walk.
If I walk into the door of atreatment facility and there is
a, if there's a five gallonbucket outside the door with
empty cigarette butts in it, whowants to go into a place like
that to get healthcare?
(06:53):
I don't, so you could fix that.
If I walk into the place andimmediately I walk in and the
person behind the desk is notonly behind a desk but behind a
computer screen and I can onlysee like half his face or her
face.
I'm sorry that is sounwelcoming.
These are all things that couldtrigger a positive effect about
(07:15):
that person's desire to be inthat space, that when you get to
that, that that mini moment,you sort of create a cascade of
feelings in that person.
So all I wanna make sure peopleunderstand is yeah, we can, we
can track all these long-termoutcomes and we can do all these
things.
But sometimes we just gottalook at what's that experience
(07:37):
of people walking in the doorand what do they smell and what
do they hear.
If it's loud off in the cornerand the walls are paper thin and
you can maybe hear anothersession going on next door, I
mean, if that's me.
I'm go, I'm out of here.
I don't want somebody to hearmy session going on.
Those things matter.
So your AMAs may not berelevant to the person not
(07:57):
wanting to commit to care.
It might be the way that theywere treated when they walked in
the door.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
You hear it really often when it comes to things
that were said during theadmissions process or with the
marketing team on the phone, andthey get there and it's
different.
You know, what you just saidreminded me of a of an
expression from Maya Angelou,and she said I've learned that
people often forget what you'vesaid and they'll forget what
(08:24):
you've did, but they're nevergoing to forget the way you made
them feel.
Yeah, and it's true.
I mean, I think that there'sdefinitely a middle ground, but
if you make somebody feelwelcome and deal with those
details that you're talkingabout, that will lend to a
(08:44):
longer term engagement as well,without people actually leaving
beforehand, so they do go handin hand together as well.
At the end of the day, it'sabout helping people and meeting
people where they are and wherethey need to be to get the best
results for them.
And that's why you've got to belooking at that data, because
(09:07):
if you're not looking at thedata and doing anything with it,
then you wouldn't have anythingto work with.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah, I was at a we're at the National Drug Court
Conference, drug CourtTreatment Conference a couple of
weeks ago and was visiting witha judge and you know it was an
interesting conversation aroundthe idea that you know, all of
these treatment courts have sortof this designed protocol
around sort of this 24 month or18 month structure of the
(09:38):
program and these four phases.
And he said, hey, judge, sowhat's your goal?
He's like I want them to getthrough all four phases.
And I said how long does thattypically take you?
And he goes the 24 months, asyou know it's suggested.
And I go Are you just trying tomeet to the clock of the 24
months?
And he goes Well, yeah, becausethat's what we're told.
(09:59):
And I'm like what if there wasanother way?
What if you found out that someof these people are excelling
faster?
Wouldn't you want to move themthrough the gates faster and get
them out of your court fasterand clean up your docket?
And he looks at me and he goesyeah, that's what I'd love to do
, but that's not what theprotocols are.
And I think there's anotherthing too, where we've got these
(10:21):
like this catch 22 sometimes inour field.
We see all the protocols we seewhat's called.
It's like so called bestpractices, but somebody else's
best practices might not be yourbest practice for the people
you serve, but you don't know it.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
If you're not collecting the data, that's it.
All kind of circles back tothat, right, I mean.
Otherwise you're just guessing.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, and you know, when you say that collecting the
data, a lot of people like sortof start to freak out and
they're like oh my gosh, I don'tknow what data to collect.
And it's like just break down aprocess and what information do
you need at each one of thosemoments, like any business has
to do this.
Right, you know, you talk aboutthe inbound of the marketing to
(11:05):
the sales process, to thecompleting the sale, to the
onboarding, to delivering theproduct, all those things.
Right, it's not really.
Once you do that, it's not hardto figure out.
What must I ask or what must Ido to, quote, capture the data?
Very true.
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