Report 2012-122 Recommendation 17 Responses
Report 2012-122: Mental Health Services Act: The State's Oversight Has Provided Little Assurance of the Act's Effectiveness, and Some Counties Can Improve Measurement of Their Program Performance (Release Date: August 2013)
Recommendation #17 To: Health Care Services, Department of
To improve the quality of county processes related to measuring program performance, Health Care Services should use its performance contracts with counties to ensure that they identify meaningful data to measure the achievement of all their goals, set specific objectives, and require their program providers to capture those data so they can use the data to verify and report the effectiveness of their MHSA programs.
1-Year Agency Response
The FY 2014-15 Performance Contract contains language specifying that counties must: report required data for the purpose of evaluating mental health outcomes; include reports on the achievement of performance outcomes in their three-year program and expenditure plan and annual updates; and, must include the performance goals from the three-year program and expenditure plan and annual updates in contracts with providers.
- Completion Date: July 2014
- Response Date: August 2014
California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented
6-Month Agency Response
The Performance Contract contains language specifying that counties must: report required data for the purpose of evaluating mental health outcomes; include reports on the achievement of performance outcomes in their three-year program and expenditure plan and annual updates; and, must include the performance goals from the three-year program and expenditure plan and annual updates in contracts with providers.
DHCS continues its ongoing effort to identify outcomes/measures for children and youth as part of the Performance Outcomes System Plan for Medi-Cal Specialty Mental Health Services for Children and Youth (POS). Since some of the evaluation efforts in the POS and the Evaluation Master Plan are similar, DHCS and the Accountability Commission will continue to collaborate to develop program performance measurements.
- Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2014
- Response Date: February 2014
California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Partially Implemented
60-Day Agency Response
The Performance Contract contains language specifying that counties must: report required data for the purpose of evaluating mental health outcomes; include reports on the achievement of performance outcomes in their three-year program and expenditure plan and annual updates; and, must include the performance goals from the three-year program and expenditure plan and annual updates in contracts with providers.
Specific statewide outcomes are established jointly by DHCS and the Accountability Commission, in collaboration with CMHDA and in consultation with the California Mental Health Planning Council (CMHPC). As additional outcomes are needed, DHCS will continue to work with the Accountability Commission and the CMHPC to develop consistent outcome definitions and uniform, statewide data reporting requirements by leading and/or consulting with various performance outcomes committees and workgroups in support of the Evaluation Master Plan.
The Performance Contract will be sent to the counties for signature approval in September 2013. The time required to fully execute this contract will depend on how quickly each county is able to gain Board of Supervisor approval. In the next report, this recommendation's implementation status will be updated with the number of counties that have fully executed their Performance Contract.
- Estimated Completion Date: 2014
- Response Date: October 2013
California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Partially Implemented
All Recommendations in 2012-122
Agency responses received are posted verbatim.