Basic Concepts ofOutcome-Informed Practice

(OIP)

OIP Practice in which you:

Measure your client’s outcomes at regular, frequent, pre-designated intervals, in a way that is sensitive to and respectful of the client

Monitor these outcomes at regular, frequent, pre-designated intervals to determine if your client is making satisfactory progress

Modify your intervention plan as needed along the way by using this practice-based evidence, in concert with evidence-based practice, to improve your client’s outcomes

Feedback

Ongoing systematic information provided to a practitioner, client, or other person or group regarding a client’s outcomes for the purpose of improving those outcomes

Client Individual, couple, family, group,

organization, or community seeking assistance with a problem from a helping professional

Also known as a “case,” a “patient” (in medical settings and psychiatric settings) or a “resident (in assisted living facilities, independent living facilities and nursing homes)

Relevant Others

Individual who is an important part of another individual’s social network

Helping Professional

Social worker, psychologist, psychiatrist, counselor, nurse, physical and occupational therapist, or other allied health care or social service professional

Problem

Specific situation, condition, or concern that needs to be addressed in order to achieve a desired goal, including difficulties or deficiencies to be remediated or prevented as well as assets and strengths to be enriched

Goal

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you might wind up someplace else.”

Yogi Berra

Goal (cont’d) General and abstract statement of a

desired outcome for which an intervention is implemented Should indicate change in real-world

functioning or quality of life that is sufficient and meaningful to the client, relevant others, and/or society at large

Objective

Specific and concrete statement detailing a desired outcome of an intervention along with measurable criteria used to define and evaluate clientsuccess

Outcome Measure

Tool used to measure the status of a client’s problem along some dimension

Measurement Plan

Overall strategy used to measure a client’s outcomes, including themethods and instrumentsused, as well as how toobtain the information, who can best provide theinformation, and when,and where, and how oftenthe information should be collected

Progress Monitoring

Frequent, regular, systematic measurement and tracking of a client’s outcome(s) in order to determine if the client is making satisfactoryprogress towardachieving goals

Formative Evaluation

Evaluation conducted during the course of a program to provide ongoing feedback used to continuously improve the program while it is underway

Outcomes Management

Process of using data about client outcomes to determine the continuation, alteration, or termination of an intervention

Intervention Specific planned action by a helping

professional and client, designed to achieve a goal or otherwise bring about beneficial change or prevent an undesirable outcome in a targeted client problem

Also referred to as a “treatment” when the intervention is designed to relieve a pathological or otherwise undesirable condition

Intervention Fidelity

Extent to which an intervention is implemented as designed and planned

Interventionas

designedIrrelevant elements - Relevant

elements

Intervention as

implemented

Intervention Monitoring

Continual systematic documentation and tracking of the fidelity with which an intervention is implemented in order to ensure that the intervention is implemented with fidelity

Implementation Assessment Evaluation designed to describe and

assess the extent to which an intervention is being implemented as originally designed and planned (fidelity)

Also known as “process evaluation”

Intervention Adherence Extent to which the client follows a

prescribed intervention regimen Also known as “treatment adherence”

Intervention Effect

Portion of an outcome change that can be attributed uniquely to an intervention rather than to other influences

Outcome Evaluation

Evaluation undertaken to determine the change in client outcomes, if any, resulting from an intervention

Summative Evaluation

Evaluation undertaken after an intervention has been completed to examine a program’s ultimate impact in order to determine the extent to which the program was effective in achieving its goals

Intervention Research and OIP Reliable, valid, and sensitive measures

are used systematically to quantify and draw conclusions about client outcomes

Attention is given to ensuring that the intervention is delivered appropriately although typically these procedures are much more intensive and formalized in intervention research

Intervention Research and OIP (cont’d) Adverse and other side-effects are of

concern. Final conclusions are drawn about the

extent to which an intervention has had the desired effect

OIP Primary purpose is to improve the well-

being of each particular client Tailored to the emerging problems,

goals, needs, characteristics, and circumstances of each particular client without regard to the extent to which results will generalize to other clients

Intervention Research Usually initiated to inform practice for

future clients through developing generalized causal knowledge about interventions that will contribute to a scientific body of knowledge

Benefits to participants are of secondary importance

Designs and measures not tailored to individual participants

Intervention Research (cont’d) Focus on the intervention rather than

the client Requirements for informed consent for

conducting research differ from those in informed consent for conducting treatment

Nomothetic

Study of groups of people or cases for the purpose of discovering general principles or laws that characterize the average person or case

Idiographic

Study of an individual person or case focused on description and understanding of unique and lawful characteristics, qualities, and responses of that person or case

Single-Case Designs

Family of designs characterized by: Systematic repeated measurement of a

client’s outcome(s) at regular, frequent, pre-designated intervals under different conditions (baseline and intervention)

Evaluation of outcomes over time and under different conditions in order to monitor client progress, identify intervention effects and, more generally, learn when, why, how, and the extent to which client change occurs

Single-Case Design (cont’d)

Also known as “single-subject designs,” “single-system designs,” “N = 1 designs,” or sometimes “time series” or “interrupted time series” designs