Our Methodology

IBHI seeks to improve mental health care and has developed a methodology called HELP to enable health care organization to achieve better outcomes.  The methodology is conducted in four phases:

  • Hear what our customers have to say
  • Evaluate the current work environment to identify opportunities to improve services
  • Leverage IBHI’s knowledge base, best practices from previous engagements and our highly respected advisors in mental health to ensure success
  • Plan the implementation using the “rapid tests of change” collaborative model

How IBHI’s Methodology Works

Providing help to the mental health community is an important aspect to IBHI’s mission.  Our goal is to help organizations improve outcomes and quality of care. This requires team work, intense focus, ideas and cooperation. Our belief is the biggest stumbling block to achieving this crucial combination of attributes is fear.  Humans are driven by fear above all else: fear of being hungry, fear of being cold, fear of not being accepted by the group, fear of the unknown as an absence of things we desire.  Fear keeps us from being ready to undertake uncertain initiatives since they may leave us with a significant hole in our ability to be comfortable.  This fear of the unknown can leave us with only a halfhearted acceptance of an effort to create major improvements. 

IBHI’s HELP methodology allows organization to overcome their fears enabling them to achieve greater successes.  Typical ways to encourage cooperation with efforts to make change are to establish a financial incentive; to establish a non-financial requirement or incentive; and to provide psychic rewards for improvement.    Part of IBHI’s HELP methodology is to emphasize the many benefits of greater psychic rewards without any threat of reduced economic rewards.

The most successful system IBHI utilizes for achieving real positive results is the “rapid tests” of change collaborative model.   In this system it is crucial to begin with a clear focus on a desired outcome or outcomes.  Once our HELP methodology is employed, we expect stakeholders to have a high level of support, in writing, from the senior management of the organization.  In most cases buy-in should come from the President or CEO.  IBHI works to establish a team of innovators to undertake the improvement process, and this team is drawn from the ranks of those closest to the part of the organization or operation in which improvement is to be achieved.  These change agents are the people with the most knowledge, the best ideas for improvement and the most to gain or lose from any changes.  They are also the people who are most likely to have concerns about changes imposed from outside and a desire to make the organization their own.  IBHI’s goal is to make sure that there is ownership of new business processes and initiatives.

The next aspect of IBHI’s HELP methodology enables organizations to develop the process of creating the structure for improvements within the organization’s framework.  Once the improvement structure is in place, IBHI will provide “rapid tests” or a package of improvements, and training for the organization to implement the methodology.  “Rapid tests” of change give the improvement team and everyone else associated with making improvements a process for trying out possible changes in ways which allow experimentation, verification, acceptance and a path to greater improvement. 

Our track record demonstrates that IBHI can HELP your organization improve outcomes.