Measuring performance of brief alcohol counseling in medical settings:a review of the options and lessons from the Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system.
Brief alcohol counseling is a top US prevention priority but has not been widely implemented. The lack of an easy performance measure for brief alcohol counseling is one important barrier to implementation. The purpose of this report is to outline important issues related to measuring performance of brief alcohol counseling in health care settings. We review the strengths and limitations of several options for measuring performance of brief alcohol counseling and describe three measures of brief alcohol counseling tested in the Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care System. We conclude that administrative data are not well-suited to measuring performance of brief alcohol counseling. Patient surveys appear to offer the optimal approach currently available for comparing performance of brief alcohol counseling across health care systems, while more options are available for measuring performance within health care systems. Further research is needed in this important area of quality improvement.
Bradley
Katharine A
KA
Health Services Research and Development, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, 1100 Olive Way, Seattle, WA 98101, USA. willi@u.washington.edu
Williams
Emily C
EC
Achtmeyer
Carol E
CE
Hawkins
Eric J
EJ
Harris
Alex H S
AH
Frey
Madeleine S
MS
Craig
Thomas
T
Kivlahan
Daniel R
DR
D000437:Alcoholism / Q000628:therapy*; D003376:Counseling; D006801:Humans; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011614:Psychotherapy, Brief; D012931:Social Environment; D014481:United States; D014493:United States Department of Veterans Affairs; D014728:Veterans