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Montana politics, elections and legislative news

Legislative Committee Addresses Effectiveness Of Mental Health Spending

Montana State Senator Diane Sands.
Courtesy Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center, University of Montana

Montana lawmakers are wondering how to track the effectiveness of nearly $20 million being injected into the state's mental health care system this year.

An Interim Committee Monday heard positive feedback on the funding package. But health care providers say they're not sure what data to collect to demonstrate whether new and expanded programs are successful.  

Missoula Democratic Senator Diane Sands said the state needs a way to determine whether these programs are helping people.

"We don't even have agreement on what the performance outcome measures are, do we?" Sands asked. "I mean in a written form? Every project I've ever worked on has those written out in hard statements with numbers attached to that you can measure against it."

Glenda Oldenburg, administrator of the department's addictive and mental disorders division, said her agency is considering tracking 911 calls related to mental health, employment data, symptoms and housing situations to measure the impact of the state funding.

"Definitely we will be looking at that and I know that I will be presenting more in the spring on these outcomes and we want it to be meaningful, where you actually see quality along with quantity."

Representatives of health care facilities who attended the meeting said the variance of patients' situations makes it difficult to write a blanket definition of what mental health progress looks like.

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