Bringing Recovery and Consumers’ Views Into the Mainstream of Mental Health Quality Measurement

Health policies in the United States and elsewhere are moving to increase accountability of health care systems and providers for providing high-quality, efficient care and driving application of evidence-based improvement strategies. To support these efforts, a “quality measurement industrial complex” has been created to develop, endorse, and apply quality measures that incentivize these behaviors. Parallel to this development in mental health care is an emerging commitment to include recovery orientation approaches in treating serious mental illness. However, consumers have been only tangentially involved in quality assessment and improvement strategies of the mental health services that they are receiving. This Open Forum aims to advance the conversation about how to integrate recovery into mental health care quality assessment cohesively and how to involve consumers in this process in a more meaningful way.