Like much of the American healthcare delivery system, providers of services for mental health and substance use disorders—collectively referred to as behavioral health—are increasingly expected to quantify the impacts of their work. These efforts to track quality of care are designed to advance the Triple Aim: improving the experience of care and outcomes, while controlling costs.
For faith-based health and human services organizations, this shift may feel both familiar and new. Many providers have long focused on holistic, person-centered care. Today, however, that work must also be translated into data to adapt to a changing system, because what gets measured gets paid for, and data is not the plural of anecdote.
A Changing Landscape: Measurement Is Driving the System
Accordingly, behavioral health service providers are adopting better data collection practices and quality measurement strategies. These changes are not happening in a vacuum. The ongoing shift to value-based payment (VBP) models, with nearly every state Medicaid system pursuing strategies that tie funding to quality outcomes rather than volume, is accelerating the change. The implications are clear: outcomes, not activity, define success. Measurement is no longer optional; it is foundational to meaningful and sustainable practice.
Why Measurement Matters for the People You Serve
The stakes are particularly high in behavioral health. People with behavioral health needs face significant inequities—individuals with serious mental illness die 10 to 25 years earlier than the general population.[1] While there have been some recent declines in combined deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide, that progress is vulnerable in a rapidly shifting policy environment.
This underscores why effective measurement matters: without it, gaps in access, quality, and outcomes remain elusive and unclear. If you are not measuring the problem, you can’t fix it. Quality measurement, when done well, is a practical tool for closing those gaps. It helps organizations identify successes, uncover opportunities, and focuses resources where they are most needed—improving access, efficacy, and the overall experience of care.
The Challenge: Too Many Measures, Not Enough Clarity
At the same time, the current measurement landscape spans multiple quality domains and comes from a wide range of sources—federal agencies, states, payers, accrediting bodies, and advocacy organizations. The result is often duplication, fragmentation, and confusion about what matters most.
Traditional measures capture only a fraction of meaningful outcomes, particularly for organizations delivering holistic, community-based care. Perhaps the most meaningful indicators— the lived experiences of individuals and their families—are often not considered or accounted for in existing measures.
The result is that providers are navigating a system where administrative burden is high, data systems are not fully aligned, and resources for building infrastructure are limited. In many cases, data are used more for compliance than for continuous improvement. As such, the real challenge is not a lack of measurement—it is too much measurement without enough utility.
What’s Emerging: A More Focused, Outcome-Oriented Approach
Despite these challenges, recent guidance and industry trends point to a clearer direction for behavioral health measurement that includes:
- Outcome-oriented approaches that reflect real-world impact
- System-level accountability tied to Medicaid and state reform
- Stronger alignment across payers and programs
- Fewer, higher-value measures
- Integrated data systems that support continuous learning
Given the growing recognition that true quality depends on integration across systems, linkages that consider access to medical care and essential social supports such as housing, nutrition, transportation, and employment will become increasingly important. For faith-based providers, this integrated, whole-person approach is not new—but the expectation to measure and demonstrate its impact is.
Building Measurement Readiness: Start Where You Are
One of the most important takeaways for providers is that being “measurement-ready” does not require complex systems. Instead, readiness depends on a few foundational elements:
- A clear understanding of why you are measuring
- Consistent definitions of populations and services
- Reliable, workflow-aligned data collection
- Basic data governance practices
- The ability to generate and act on a focused set of core metrics
Equally important is how measurement is implemented. Successful organizations engage staff in the process—doing it with them, not to them—and start small, building capacity over time. Measurement should focus on what is actually actionable. More data are not always better; actionable data are what drives improvement.
Looking Ahead: Measurement as a Tool for Impact
Measurement is challenging, and it can be expensive. It is also essential—not only for participating in value-based payment models, but also for telling your organization’s impact story and describing your work in credible, compelling ways.
Ultimately, enabling people with behavioral health conditions to thrive requires a reliance on data-driven strategies to deliver the highest quality care in the most resource-conscious way. Measurement, when thoughtfully applied, strengthens care, amplifies the work of community partners, and supports better outcomes.
The behavioral health sector will continue moving toward shared accountability, aligned incentives, and systems that support continuous improvement. Providers who build measurement readiness in phased, realistic ways—paired with appropriate investment and support—will be best positioned to succeed.
Joshua Rubin is Vice President of Client Solutions at Health Management Associates.
[1] Plana-Ripoll O, Musliner KL, Dalsgaard S, et al. Nature and prevalence of combinations of mental disorders and their association with excess mortality in a population-based cohort study. World Psychiatry. 2020;19(3):339–49