The applicant proposes to research implementation of DBMS technology applied to support case management functions for children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbance in multi-agency systems of care, with a view to develop a product which can be marketed to public and private sector health care organizations who are for children and adolescents with similar serious disabilities. The project will study the implementation of a model DBMS application called CareTrack (formerly called SEDTRACK) which was developed for the eight sites of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Mental Health Services Program for Youth (MHSPY). Under this program, state and community partnerships are developing systems of care for children and adolescents with serious mental illness involving health, child welfare, educational, public health and juvenile justice agencies in catchment areas between 300,000 to 500,000 population. The research will evaluate the technical functioning of CareTrack in supporting case management operations in a multi-agency setting, assess the degree to which it is user-friendly, determine its impact on decision making by the managers of the system of care, and develop effective training materials which will ease the implementation of the system in human service organizations. Evaluation of the system's performance will be based on measures of medical quality assurance, accuracy of information, accuracy of financial estimates including entitlement revenues, security maintenance and customer satisfaction.
