OBJECTIVES: One quarter of Canadian youth experience a mental health issue each year. In response, there is national momentum to develop a health services model that can address the immediate needs of this population. The objectives of this presentation are to: (1) provide an overview of a new model of youth mental health services called Foundry (foundrybc.ca), and (2) describe the how new advances in measurement supported the process of selection, testing, and implementation of patient-reported outcome and experience measures (PROMs and PREMs) in this context of use.

METHODS: Over 14 months, we held focus groups with stakeholders to identify the requirements for data collection. The focus groups resulted in the selection of a set of items and 13 measures to capture the demographic profile of patients, types of services received, patient-reported outcomes, and overall patient experience at Foundry. We used Rasch Measurement Theory (RMT) methods to guide real time interpretation of the PROM/PREM data to understand the extent to which measures were reliable, valid, and producing scores that were clinically useful and interpretable for patients, clinicians, and families.

RESULTS: In this period, five Foundry centres provided services to 4,783 unique youth. Total visits recorded for the proof of concept period was 35,791, with 76% of youth reporting to be less than 19 years old, 66% identifying as white, and 30% as having a sexual orientation other than heterosexual. Only four PROMs and the one PREM consistently met the criteria for robust psychometric testing as outlined by RMT.

CONCLUSIONS: The results support the feasibility of testing and implementing PROMs and PREMs in an integrated youth mental health setting. The results also suggested that RMT can glean important diagnostic information about the extent to which