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Quality Improvement and Clinical Psychological Science

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Quality Improvement in Behavioral Health

Abstract

Clinical psychological science (CPS) faces significant challenges including low uptake of empirically supported treatment, slow progress in improving efficacy, and low treatment seeking. Quality improvement (QI) offers a number of promising insights that may help address these challenges. This chapter discusses how key QI themes are exemplified in promising research directions within CPS and how these efforts can be further clarified and enhanced. Themes that are explored include: examining quality as a multifaceted construct, focusing on systems for improvement, identifying and targeting sources of variability in quality, focusing on consumers, reducing costs while improving quality, and using iterative improvement cycles and continuous evaluation. This chapter explores each of these QI themes within the context of promising and innovative CPS research examples. In doing so, the chapter seeks to highlight how QI principles might help guide a more progressive approach to CPS research that addresses current challenges.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Utah State University, Logan, UT, 84322, USA

    Michael E. Levin & Sarah A. Potts

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  1. Michael E. Levin
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  2. Sarah A. Potts
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Correspondence to Michael E. Levin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada, USA

    William O'Donohue

  2. Department of Psychology and Counseling, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, Arkansas, USA

    Alexandros Maragakis

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Levin, M.E., Potts, S.A. (2016). Quality Improvement and Clinical Psychological Science. In: O'Donohue, W., Maragakis, A. (eds) Quality Improvement in Behavioral Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26209-3_5

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