The Practice of Therapy Podcast with Gordon Brewer: Russell DuBois | Measurement-Based Care In Private Practice

Russell DuBois | Measurement-Based Care In Private Practice | TPOT 193

Aug 30, 2021

Russell DuBois joins the show to talk about Blueprint and the importance of measurement-based care. Blueprint automatically gathers client data, measures client outcomes, and get insights at the point of care to make more informed treatment decisions. The more therapists can stay curious about their work, the more likely they are to avoid burnout. Tune in as we talk about how clients, clinicians, and group practice owners can benefit from using a measurement-based mental health care service like Blueprint.

Meet Russell DuBois

Dr. Russell DuBois is a psychologist specializing in psychological testing, pediatric & behavioral health psychology, and technology for innovation in mental healthcare. He has over 30+ published research studies, book chapters, and professional presentations at national and international conferences and acts as a peer-reviewer for multiple scientific research journals.

Dr. DuBois has held clinical and research training positions at top institutions including Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School, Alpert Medical School at Brown University, and Northeastern University. He is the Clinical & Research Director at Blueprint, a leading digital mental health screening, and assessment platform. His areas of expertise include: mood disorders, eating disorders, mindfulness, mental health technology and innovation, clinical data science, pediatric psychology, health psychology, and psychological testing and evaluation.

Preventing Burnout With Measurement-Based Care

We're all busy, strapped for time, and struggling to keep up with the requirements to be a therapist. A lot of us go into our therapy sessions blind. Clients show up every week, we ask how things are going, and it gets really repetitive. It's challenging if you are doing therapy full-time because the repetition can lead to burnout. When you lose a sense of curiosity, that is a massive sign of burnout.

Curiosity is at the heart of staying engaged as a therapist. Measurement-based care helps you be much more informed about your clients and their lived experiences. You have a lot of information that you can learn from and use during the session to help you out. That way, you aren't flying by the seat of your pants. When you're able to collect information and get data about your clients that you never thought you would otherwise, you can approach your work with clients in an inquisitive way, which is healthy from a burnout perspective.

The Basics Behind Blueprint

Russell has over 100,000 clients on his platform. Blueprint will listen to both the needs and the problems of therapists. Blueprint is a digital platform that operates at three levels: clients, clinicians, and group practice owners. Russell built Blueprint on top of decades of research proving that measurement-based care improves client outcomes and reduces the time-to-remission. They track and analyze a combination of data, including symptoms, lifestyle metrics, and wearable devices, to give you a deeper understanding of a client's mental health to better personalize care.

Why Clients Enjoy Blueprint

Clients can download the app and track crucial information about their mental health and wellness. So they can track things like trends in their mood and their energy. Plus, they can record their sleep quality and social engagement over time. Clients can connect their blueprint app to their GPS in their health kit on their phone so that they can track the number of steps taken each day and how long they are spending at home each day. It's a wonderful tool for clients to improve self-awareness and to understand themselves a little bit better.

How Blueprint Helps Clinicians

Clinicians or therapists can use a blueprint to become more informed about their clients. There are different types of screening measures that clinicians can use. Blueprint is a big fan of aligning the measurements library that our partners have with the kind of work their clinicians do. For instance, they have measures on couple satisfaction, family cohesion, and mindfulness. Whatever it is, there is probably a measurement on Blueprint for it. Through that process, clinicians or therapists can access all this information in real-time to help learn and educate themselves about their clients over time. Overall, clinicians can rely on this data to provide this higher quality measurement-based care.

Improve Your Group Practice With Blueprint

Blueprint is not only great for clients and clinicians; Blueprint is excellent for group practice owners. Blueprint is an easy way to track and report on population outcomes. Plus, you can grow your revenue by submitting insurance claims for blueprint assessments. You don't need to be a data scientist; you don't need any measurement background; it's all done for you through the software. Plus, when clients experience this measurement-based care, their engagement in treatment goes up—measurement-based care reduced dropout rates by twenty percent. For a group practice owner, that's a critical measurement to know.

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