Automating Expertise To Help Assess MH Client Needs

Social work agencies serving the mentally ill are seeing an increasing percentage of seriously mentally ill persons with multiple needs in non-clinical areas like housing, income, behavior, and employment. An accurate and thorough assessment of these needs is required if agencies are to effectively serve the mentally ill. Using innovative computer technology, called "expert systems," we collaborated with the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation to build a computer system called ASAP which assists direct service staff in assessing non-clinical needs. Several MH agencies in California would like to adapt ASAP to their settings. However, an expanded assessment model and a more flexible computer representation of the model is required to allow easy adaptation. The research will test the completeness and flexibility of an expanded assessment model and the adequacy of a representation technique for a new system called the Case Manager's Assistant (CMA) which could be adapted to any setting in which basic human needs are assessed. The research design reflects the state of the art for the validation of expert systems in practice. By including a quasi-experimental methodology (replicated single subject design), it can advance research in this area.