program evaluation / summary statistics

Individual vs. Caseload Evaluation

OutcomeTracker allows you to evaluate outcome from two perspectives—the individual patient and your entire caseload. First, there is the day-to-day individualized perspective of determining how well a patient is responding to treatment. The ongoing completion of the questionnaires by patients allows you to more carefully and efficiently monitor a patient's symptoms. The advantages of such a measurement-based care approach towards treatment are described elsewhere. (click here)

Second, OutcomeTracker provides the clinician the opportunity to evaluate the outcome of treatment across their caseload. On this webpage the OutcomeTracker system will allow you to easily and quickly evaluate outcome across all of your patients during the acute phase of treatment of their depressed patients.

The Three Phases of the Treatment of Depression

A brief word about the phases of treatment of depression. The treatment of depression has been divided into three phases. The initial, acute, phase of treatment generally refers to the first three months. In the acute phase the goal is to achieve a reduction in symptoms and psychosocial impairment. In the continuation phase, which is generally considered to occur during the first six months to one year after the initial treatment response, the goal is to maintain these gains, and prevent relapse. In the maintenance phase, which occurs after a sustained period of improvement, the goal is to further maintain the gains, and prevent a recurrence of the disorder. OutcomeTracker provides summary statistics for treatment during the initial acute phase.

Summary Statistics in OutcomeTracker: Treatment Response and Remission

In OutcomeTracker you can aggregate information from the completed CUDOS' across your caseload and determine the percentage of patients who have responded to treatment, and the percentage who have remitted in treatment. Treatment response is defined as an improvement in CUDOS scores of at least 50% from the initial visit to the visit closest to the 3 month follow-up visit. Remission is defined as a 3 month CUDOS score below 20. Previous research has established the validity of the CUDOS as an indicator of treatment response and as an index of remission. (references)

In addition to determining overall rates of treatment response and remission, you can separately determine response and remission rates for your male and female patients, and for your patients in different age groups.

Compute the Summary Statistics for Your Practice

Choose one of the following groups

• All patients
• Female patients
• Male patients
• Patients age 18-30
• Patients age 31-45
• Patients age 46-60
• Patients age 61 and above