The impact of waiting lists in the community psychosocial field
At SDP, we are proud to provide the ASO solution for all our customers in the community psychosocial field. It's easy to see that limited resources in these essential services create the phenomenon of waiting lists. This reflects the desire of community organizations to offer their services to the population in need, and the fact that availability unfortunately remains limited, so an unwanted delay is often unavoidable. Managing these waiting lists often poses an organizational challenge.
The challenges facing people waiting for psychosocial services
Waiting lists represent a risk that all resources seek to avoid or at least minimize: the risk that the situation or condition of the person concerned will deteriorate due to the need already present and the absence of intervention. In her thesis, Wilson-Burke (2024) reports on people who were placed on waiting lists in the mental health sector. In this article, we find various difficulties encountered by people placed on waiting lists: the feeling of being in limbo, the search for information, the challenges that continued with their reason for consultation.
Eichstedt et al (2024) have completed a literature review on different waiting list management strategies in child and adolescent mental health. They highlight different strategies: prioritization/sorting on initial assessment, brief consultation, group models, interim services, increasing intervention capacity, strategies to reduce no-shows.
The different waiting lists in ASO
Let's explore together how the different strategies listed by Eichstedt et al. (2024) are put into action across different ASO platforms.
– Prioritization/triage based on an initial assessment
Several resources that have adopted ASO were already using tools to perform an initial assessment during the service request process. These tools are already adapted to the field and sometimes allow for prioritization based on the criteria evaluated. During implementation, it is essential to integrate these tools into ASO and take advantage of digitization to automate certain parts of the process: calculation of the prioritization score according to a pre-established weighting for the relevant criteria, waiting lists ordered according to the prioritization criteria for efficient allocation, saved history of the prioritization process, and possible adjustments when necessary.
– Brief consultation
Several resources offer brief consultation services in the form of follow-up phone calls. ASO offers a comprehensive follow-up module that allows you to schedule follow-ups based on a date for the next contact, which is adjusted during the brief consultation phase. The module makes it easy to organize follow-ups for effective management while providing a simple interface for recording contact attempts, messages left, etc., without the need to create an intervention for each action.
– Group models
In addition to offering comprehensive modules for managing support groups and group interventions, ASO includes tools for registering individuals on waiting lists for various group programs. Once registration is complete in the client's file, it is placed in a pool of registrations sorted by program, availability, location, etc. This makes it easy when planning future groups to see where the resource is most needed and to register clients according to the relevant criteria.
– Temporary services
Sometimes, temporary services provided by partners may be relevant during the waiting period. ASO has a resource bank that the organization can maintain. All relevant information, contact details, types of services, and themes can be entered for each resource. With a comprehensive resource bank, it becomes easy to search by theme or service to find helpful references.
– Increased capacity for intervention
An inherent desire in implementing the ASO solution is to increase team efficiency and reduce administrative tasks related to clinical work. By facilitating the entry of clinical information and automating various aspects of team operations, ASO allows the hours saved to be redistributed directly to interventions with the population.
– Strategies for reducing missed appointments
ASO allows you to schedule appointments in the client's calendar that also appear in the intervention schedule, which also includes team meetings, team training, community activities, group interventions, and any other relevant category containing a date. This makes it easy to track the results of these appointments: service provided, appointment rescheduled, or appointment canceled. This makes it easier to track each client's attendance.
Bibliography
Julie A. Eichstedt, Kara Turcotte, Grace Golden, Alexis E. Arbuthnott, Samantha Chen, Kerry A. Collins, Stephanie Mowat, Graham J. Reid, Waitlist management in child and adolescent mental health care: A scoping review, Children and Youth Services Review, Volume 160, 2024, 107529, ISSN 0190-7409, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740924001014
Wilson-Burke, Esta (2024). "I needed the help. They weren't giving it": Experiences of young people in tertiary education on waitlists for mental health services in Aotearoa, Open Access Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington, Thesis, https://doi.org/10.26686/wgtn.26113699
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