Transforming VR into a Reality for Behavioral Healthcare: The NeuroVR Project

AbstractIntensive Home Based Treatment (IHBT) is a critical component of the continuum of community-based behavioral healthcare for youth with serious emotional disorder (SED) and their families. Yet despite being used nationwide at costs of over $100 million annually in some states, a well-vetted, research-based set of quality standards for IHBT has yet to be developed. The current project aimed to define program and practice standards for IHBT, drawing upon literature review, expert interviews, and a systematic Delphi process engaging over 80 participants, including IHBT developers, experts in evidence-based youth mental health, youth and family advocates, IHBT providers, and state policymakers. After two rounds of quantitative and qualitative input, adequate consensus was achieved on 32 IHBT Program Standards and 43 IHBT Practice Standards. These standards hold potential for informing efforts such as development of state regulations, provider contracts, memoranda of agreement, and training and workforce development initiatives. Translation of the quality standards into measurement strategies holds potential for providing a method of continuous quality improvement across multiple levels as well as use in research on IBHT.

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Experiences of secure transport in outdoor behavioral healthcare: A narrative inquiry

Qualitative Social Work ◽

10.1177/14733250211020088 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 147332502110200

Author(s):

Will W Dobud

Keyword(s):

Narrative Inquiry ◽

Lived Experience ◽

Wilderness Therapy ◽

The United States ◽

Future Research ◽

Ethical Practice ◽

Behavioral Healthcare ◽

Transport Services ◽

Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare ◽

Trauma Informed

Often synonymous with wilderness therapy, outdoor behavioral healthcare (OBH) is a residential treatment in the United States for young people, more than half of whom are sent via secure transport services. While empirical evidence suggests the secure transport of adolescents to OBH does not impact quantitative outcomes, limited research exists exploring client voice and the lived experience of OBH participants. This qualitative study, utilizing narrative inquiry, builds knowledge on experiences of secure transport services from nine past OBH adolescent participants. Findings are analyzed, interpreted, and discussed through a social work and trauma-informed lens. Recommendations for ethical practice, linking with human rights, and future research are provided.

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Knowledge Delivery and Decision Support for Behavioral Healthcare Professionals

Health Informatics - Information Technology Essentials for Behavioral Health Clinicians ◽

10.1007/978-1-84996-344-2_4 ◽

2010 ◽

pp. 47-64

Author(s):

Robert S. Kennedy ◽

Lawrence G. Weiss ◽

Naakesh A. Dewan ◽

John S. Luo ◽

Nancy M. Lorenzi

Keyword(s):

Decision Support ◽

Healthcare Professionals ◽

Behavioral Healthcare ◽

Knowledge Delivery

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Forecasting Imminent Deaths

10.31219/osf.io/ymw4t ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Silvia Rizzi ◽

James W Vaupel

Keyword(s):

Short Term ◽

Excess Death ◽

Economic Changes ◽

Behavioral Healthcare ◽

Policy Interventions ◽

Short Term Mortality ◽

Short Term Forecasting ◽

Mortality Forecasts ◽

The Impact ◽

Death Count

We introduce a new method for making short-term mortality forecasts of a few months, illustrating it by estimating how many deaths might have happened if some major shock had not occurred. We apply the method to assess excess mortality from March to June 2020 in Denmark and Sweden as a result of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, associated policy interventions and behavioral, healthcare, social and economic changes. We chose to compare Denmark and Sweden because reliable data were available and because the two countries are similar but chose different responses to covid-19: Denmark imposed a rather severe lockdown; Sweden did not. We make forecasts by age and sex to predict expected deaths if covid-19 had not struck. Subtracting these forecasts from observed deaths gives the excess death count. Excess deaths were lower in Denmark than Sweden during the first wave of the pandemic. The later/earlier ratio we propose for shortcasting is easy to understand, requires less data than more elaborate approaches, and may be useful in many countries in making both predictions about the future and the past to study the impact on mortality of coronavirus and other epidemics. In the application to Denmark and Sweden, prediction intervals are narrower and bias is less than when forecasts are based on averages of the last five years, as is often done. More generally, later/earlier ratios may prove useful in short-term forecasting of illnesses and births as well as economic and other activity that varies seasonally or periodically.

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