Evaluation of the Better Outcomes in Mental Health Care Initiative
29th April 2004

The Better Outcomes in Mental Health Care Initiative has a commitment to evaluation.  An Evaluation Working Group has been established to provide advice to the Department of Health and Ageing on evaluation issues concerning the initiative generally and the Access to Allied Health Services projects specifically.  

The Centre for Health Program Evaluation (CHPE) based at the University of Melbourne has been appointed to develop and recommend an evaluation framework for the entire Better Outcomes initiative, to conduct an evaluation of the Allied Health Services component and to provide evaluation support to Divisions conducting Allied Health Services.   

The national evaluation framework is under development and when finalised, will set out suggest activities and bodies of work that could be commissioned in order to build the evaluation.  The Allied Health Services evaluation will synthesise information from a minimum dataset (MDS), local evaluations and progress reports provided to the Department of Health and Ageing.  The minimum dataset will standardise the basic information collected by Divisions running allied health services, and therefore act as an important evaluation tool.  The dataset is designed to capture de-identified consumer-level information which will describe who is accessing allied health care as a result of these projects, as well as providing a broad overview of the care these people are receiving.     

The MDS was developed in consultation with the Evaluation Working Group and some Divisions. The MDS is a secure, password protected, web-based database into which Divisions can directly enter data. Instructions for how to access and use the database have been sent to Divisions. Questions about the minimum dataset can be directed to ahpilots@strategicdata.com.au.   

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