SCOTT D Miller - For the latest and greatest information on Feedback Informed Treatment

  • About
    • About Scott
    • Publications
  • Training and Consultation
  • Workshop Calendar
  • FIT Measures Licensing
  • FIT Software Tools
  • Online Store
  • Top Performance Blog
  • Contact Scott
info@scottdmiller.com 773.404.5130

What’s in an Acronym? CDOI, FIT, PCOMS, ORS, SRS … all BS?

June 7, 2014 By scottdm Leave a Comment

“What’s in a name?”

–William Shakespeare

A little over a week ago, I received an email from Anna Graham Anderson, a graduate student in psychology at Aarhus University in Denmark.  “I’m writing,” she said, “in hopes of receiving some clarifications.”

Anna Graham Anderson
Anna Graham Anderson

Without reading any further, I knew exactly where Anna was going.  I’d fielded the same question before.  As interest in measurement and feedback has expanded, it comes up more and more frequently.

Anna continued,  “I cannot find any literature on the difference between CDOI, FIT, PCOMS, ORS, and SRS.  No matter where I search, I cannot find any satisfying clues.  Is it safe to say they are the same?”  Or, as another asked more pointedly, “Are all these acronyms just a bunch of branding B.S.?”

I answered, “B.S.?  No.  Confusing?  Absolutely.  So, what is the difference?”

As spelled out in each of the six treatment and training manuals, FIT, or feedback-informed treatment, is, “a panetheoretical approach for evaluating and improving the quality and effectiveness of behavioral health services.  It involves routinely and formally soliciting feedback from consumers regarding the therapeutic relationship and outcome of care and using the resulting information to inform and tailor service deliver.”

Importantly, FIT is agnostic regarding both the method of treatment and the particular measures a practitioner may employ.  Some practitioners use the ORS and SRS, two brief, simple-to-use, and free measures of progress and the therapeutic relationship–but any other valid and reliable scales could be used.

Of all the acronyms associated with my work, CDOI is the one I no longer use.  For me, it had always problematic as it came precariously close to being a treatment model, a way of doing therapy.  I wasn’t  interested in creating a new therapeutic approach.  My work and writing on the common factors had long ago convinced me the field needed no more therapeutic schools.  The phrase, “client-directed, outcome-informed”  described the team’s position at the time, with one foot in the past (how to do therapy), the other in the future (feedback).

And PCOMS?  A long time ago, my colleagues and I had a dream of launching a web-based “system for both monitoring and improving the effectiveness of treatment” (Miller et. al, 2005).  We did some testing at an employee assistance program in located in Texas, formed a corporation called PCOMS (Partners for Change Outcome Management System), and even hired a developer to build the site.  In the end, nothing happened.  Overtime, the acronym, PCOMS, began to be used as an overall term referring to the ORS, SRS, and norms for interpreting the scores.  In February 2013, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Adminstration (SAMHSA) formally recognized PCOMS as an evidence-based practice.  You can read more about PCOMS at: www.whatispcoms.com.

I expect there will be new names and acronyms as the work evolves.  While some remain, others, like fossils, are left behind; evidence of what has come before, their sum total a record of development over time.

Filed Under: Feedback Informed Treatment - FIT Tagged With: cdoi, evidence based medicine, evidence based practice, feedback informed treatment, FIT, ors, outcome measurement, outcome rating scale, PCOMS, SAMHSA, session rating scale, srs, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Adminstration

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

 

SEARCH

Subscribe for updates from my blog.

loader

Email Address*

Name

Upcoming Training

Jun
21

FIT CAFÉ Summer 2022


Aug
01

FIT Implementation Intensive 2022


Aug
03

Feedback Informed Treatment (FIT) Intensive ONLINE

FIT Software tools

FIT Software tools

LinkedIn

Topics of Interest:

  • behavioral health (4)
  • Behavioral Health (112)
  • Brain-based Research (2)
  • CDOI (14)
  • Conferences and Training (67)
  • deliberate practice (31)
  • Dodo Verdict (9)
  • Drug and Alcohol (3)
  • evidence-based practice (66)
  • excellence (63)
  • Feedback (40)
  • Feedback Informed Treatment – FIT (218)
  • FIT (29)
  • FIT Software Tools (12)
  • ICCE (26)
  • Implementation (7)
  • medication adherence (3)
  • obesity (1)
  • PCOMS (11)
  • Practice Based Evidence (39)
  • PTSD (4)
  • Suicide (1)
  • supervision (1)
  • Termination (1)
  • Therapeutic Relationship (9)
  • Top Performance (40)

Recent Posts

  • Managing the next Pandemic
  • The Most Important Psychotherapy Book
  • Naïve, Purposeful, and Deliberate Practice? Only One Improves Outcomes
  • Study Shows FIT Improves Effectiveness by 25% BUT …
  • Seeing What Others Miss

Recent Comments

  • Jeffrey Von Glahn on The Most Important Psychotherapy Book
  • James Venneear on The Most Important Psychotherapy Book
  • Asta on The Expert on Expertise: An Interview with K. Anders Ericsson
  • Michael McCarthy on Culture and Psychotherapy: What Does the Research Say?
  • Jim Reynolds on Culture and Psychotherapy: What Does the Research Say?

Tags

addiction Alliance behavioral health brief therapy Carl Rogers CBT cdoi common factors conferences continuing education denmark evidence based medicine evidence based practice Evolution of Psychotherapy excellence feedback feedback informed treatment healthcare holland icce international center for cliniclal excellence medicine mental health meta-analysis Norway NREPP ors outcome measurement outcome rating scale post traumatic stress practice-based evidence psychology psychometrics psychotherapy psychotherapy networker public behavioral health randomized clinical trial SAMHSA session rating scale srs supershrinks sweden Therapist Effects therapy Training