E05 – Using Goal Attainment Scaling to Engage Patients and Other Providers in Primary Care

Summary

An essential function of the primary care behavioral health (PCBH) model is to integrate services so that patients may access and utilize healthcare resources more easily and effectively. Integrating behavioral health within all aspects of healthcare delivery provides opportunities for patients to become more engaged in their care and contribute to shared decision-making and treatment planning. The goal attainment scale (GAS) is an excellent vehicle for promoting more active patient participation. The GAS is a measure that can be co-constructed with the patient to operationalize and quantify key health behaviors related to their goals. Using this instrument, the patient’s goals can be both individualized and standardized. Facilitating individualized goals provides personalized, patient-centered care. Creating a standardized methodology for self-monitoring and reporting progress provides a well-validated process for measurement base care. Thus, the GAS enables the patient to monitor progress toward their health goals using clearly defined, behavioral metrics. Further, these operationalized behaviors can be shared across behavioral and medical members of the care team to enable greater consistency and continuity of support for the patient’s treatment plan. This presentation will provide guidance for providers across disciplines to incorporate the GAS into their patient encounters in primary care. Common primary care patient concerns will be presented, and participants will be challenged to develop working GAS measures to address them. The presentation will conclude by discussing broader applications of GAS, including applications for improving team-based care and integration, promoting structured training experiences for learners, and the incorporation of technology when using the GAS for measurement-based care.