The Changing Behavioral Health Care Landscape: The Need for Evidence-Based Practice

[ladykws]

Very good. Quite informative. Thank you.

[ericmxgoogleovergoogle]

Preeminent.- Superior to or notable above all others; outstanding. greatest in importance or degree or significance or achievement.

[GeorgeLocke]

Let me save you the trouble of watching the talk: behavioral health services are insufficient in this country. The talk basically doesn't go further than this. How insufficient are they? What are the consequences of the gap, and what benefits could be accrued by closing it? Mechanic provides none of the necessary context in which the over-abundant facts and figures can be interpreted.

Mechanic begins by showing how extended hospitalization has declined over the last 60 years, providing not the slightest hint at why anyone should care. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Mechanic provides no clue, and god forbid that he should discuss evidence of the _effect_ of this dramatic shift in healthcare practice. What is the point? This is the question that comes up over and over during this presentation.

"Evidence-based" appears in the title, and Mechanic mentions the term in his introduction, but nowhere in the talk was any discussion of the evidence base for any of the treatments discussed. Instead, we are simply informed that this or that treatment is effective - which amounts to the "eminence based medicine" that Mechanic decries at the outset. I expected at least some assessment of the evidence supporting available services, or, barring that, some assessment of the evidence of the need for behavioral health services... I mean, there's plenty of "evidence" in the presentation, i.e. measurements, but what do the data tell us???

This presentation appears to function as a summary of statistics regarding the use of mental health services in the US, which is useless without an accompanying analysis of the need for these services. If you're going to focus on statistics of healthcare delivery and argue that these statistics show a lack, then don't you think you would at least provide some statistics regarding the need for these services?Mechanic doesn't even go this far.

This is all extremely disappointing. The presentation is not at all informative.