Exemplar – October, 2024

Welcome to Exemplar, the Benchmark Human Services (Benchmark) company newsletter. Enjoy, and please contact our Development team with any questions: [email protected].

Measuring Outcomes to Ensure Excellence

By David Ross, Benchmark’s Chief Operating Officer

“What gets measured, gets managed”   – Many are credited, including Peter Drucker

“Curiosity is more important than knowledge” – Einstein

I often hear golf commentators ask a tournament winner if they were watching the leaderboard down the stretch.  The implication being that if you’re in the lead, were you just focused on staying within yourself and being maybe a bit conservative, or did you know you were behind and needed to be more proactive/aggressive?  Our “game” is increased independence and inclusion as we operate/serve through a lens of potential. Considering that the people we serve deserve the best and have often been and remain marginalized, no matter our “score,” we must remain aggressive in our pursuit of excellence.   In the warm-fuzzy world of human services, you still need to keep score.  Numbers matter!

Every year, we generate an Outcome Measures Report to summarize multiple programs’ quarterly tracking of key performance indicators (six to eight per program).  Since 1992, we have used an Outcome Measures Report to ensure that as we grow geographically and programmatically, we are standardizing the measures and expectations of performance wherever we are and whatever service we are delivering.  These measures help ensure that we are doing things consistently and in a way that aligns with our core values.

Our commitment is to continuously measure efficiency, effectiveness, access, and participant/stakeholder experiences.  This year had some interesting and differentiating results.  Here are a few examples:

Direct Support Professional Retention—For two years in a row, we have maintained a 30% turnover rate. Compared to national sources (National Core Indicators and ANCOR), these are excellent results in our industry.

Supported Living—Individuals in services annual retention was 92.7%. In a choice-driven environment, this is a critical measure as people can vote on your services “with their feet.”

Community Employment Service – Individuals placed into community jobs had a 90-day retention rate of 83%.

Mobile Crisis Response – Georgia teams responded to 100% of over 7,200 dispatched calls in FY 24. Statewide average response time for Benchmark’s mobile crisis was 54.84 minutes for FY 24 and 57.67 minutes in FY 23. This remains under the 60-minute mark.

The goal in measuring these data points is not merely to find good results and pat ourselves on the back.  We must drill down on negative outliers and continuously improve.  For example, if our overall DSP turnover rate is 30%, we need to isolate markets that performed with much higher turnover and ensure best practices are implemented (i.e., thorough frontline supervisor training) everywhere and/or seek innovation through piloting new ideas.

The outcome measures reporting system is not designed to simply generate a product or report.  It must perpetuate a way of doing business and shape daily decision-making.  Knowing the score is not nearly enough.  The key is to ask ourselves, “What are we going to do about what we’ve learned?”  Einstein said, “Curiosity is more important than knowledge.” We must analyze, be curious, and pursue excellence.  The people we serve are counting on us, and they deserve our best.

Active Consulting Featured in OPEN MINDS Article

Active Consulting was featured in an OPEN MINDS Program Profile, which you can read here. Benchmark’s Active Consulting model is an innovation that addresses the common challenges states, plans, providers, and caregivers face when serving individuals with complex needs and high care costs.

While traditional diagnosis-specific or discrete service-oriented models do not accommodate the individuals Active Consulting aims to serve, this model is truly person-centered and works to stabilize individuals regardless of their age, diagnosis, or level of complexity. A multidisciplinary team wraps around an individual and their support network, conducting intensive assessments while simultaneously providing access to supports to stabilize the individual and 24/7 support for crisis de-escalation and debriefing. This work leads to remarkable results:

The model aims to increase clinical professional, caregiver, and system capacity to support individuals with complex needs while reducing reliance on high-cost services such as emergency departments and institutional care. Learn more.

If you are interested in bringing Active Consulting to your state, please contact our Development team: [email protected]

Anne Titus Joins DDRS Advisory Council

Anne Titus, Benchmark Vice President, was recently named a member of the Indiana Division of Disability and Rehabilitative Services (DDRS) Advisory Council. The DDRS Advisory Council was established to assist the Division of Disability and Rehabilitative Services in ensuring individuals with disabilities are as independent and self-sufficient as possible. Titus has extensive experience helping individuals served at Benchmark do just that.

Titus joined Benchmark as a Direct Support Professional (DSP) in 1992. She has been at the forefront of leading community integration efforts since the early 2000s, successfully transitioning hundreds of individuals with disabilities, including those with the most intensive behavioral and medical needs, into community living.

Currently, Titus oversees Benchmark’s licensed group homes and specialty homes in Indiana, as well as complex needs homes located in Missouri, Montana, and New Hampshire.