In the United States, as in many other countries, federally funded medical and behavioral healthcare programs often have substantial evaluation outcome tracking and reporting requirements. These tracking requirements can become burdensome to program staff resulting in decreased buy-in, increased chance of staff burnout and turnover, and less rigorous and consistent data collection efforts. To address this issue, a novel data collection approach, “exception reporting,” was implemented to supplement and support the required data collection for a federally funded Assertive Outpatient Treatment (AOT) program. This work details the process and outcomes related to exception reporting for this comprehensive behavioral health treatment program that serves justice involved clients with serious mental illness (SMI). Results indicate that exception reporting was easily integrated into clinician’s normal workflows and resulted in a number of benefits. Specifically, results indicated that exception reporting decreased the data collection burden for program staff while allowing them to efficiently track program outcomes required by the funder. Additional research into which practice settings exception reporting can most easily be integrated into, and which client outcomes may be best tracked using this methodology, is indicated. Future evaluation research in behavioral healthcare may wish to explore if certain practice settings are more conducive to easily implementing exception reporting within their data collection approach

Dr. Jamison V. Kovach is an Associate Dean and Professor at the University of Houston. (Presenter) Dr. Robin E. Gearing is a Professor and the Director of the Center for Mental Health Research and Innovations in Treatment Engagement and Service (MH-RITES) at the University of Houston. Dr. Gearing’s research focuses on improving the mental health outcomes of individuals with SMI. His research is driven by an interest in informing and improving engagement and adherence to empirically-supported treatment, and developing evidence-based interventions. Dr. Micki Washburn is a mental health/substance use researcher and Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington